The reasoned debate continues.

It turns out the hurricane was caused by meteorologists.

Trump suggested the Biden administration’s response had been lacking and planned in partisan ways that caused Republican voters be abandoned and left “Americans to drown”, particularly in North Carolina after Helene. “They’ve let those people suffer unjustly,” he said. His comments have received bipartisan criticism, including from some local and state Republican leaders in affected areas.

Remember how Trump dealt with hurricanes? Throwing rolls of paper towels at people? Ignoring Puerto Rico altogether?

Meteorologists tracking Milton have been beset by conspiracy theories that they are controlling the weather, even by using a nuclear explosion, and have faced death threats.

“I’ve never seen a storm garner so much misinformation, we have just been putting out fires of wrong information everywhere,” said the CBS meteorologist Katie Nickolaou. She added: “Murdering meteorologists won’t stop hurricanes. I can’t believe I just had to type that.”

Ok but will throwing vulcanologists into volcanoes stop eruptions?

Trump thinks “grocery” is an obscure word that needs him to explain it.

Trump attacking other people’s intellectual capacities:

Donald Trump lashed out at the hosts of The View on Wednesday with a string of low-brow insults, including that they are “demented,” “dirty,” and “dumb.”

“I watched that stupid View where you have these dumb people,” a rambling Trump told a rally in Reading, Pennsylvania…Then, as if his brain were spitting out one of his impulsive, celebrity-obsessed tweets of yore, the former president trained his ire on Whoopi Goldberg, The View’s co-host and moderator, calling her “demented.”

Trump claimed, before he was in politics, he once hired Goldberg—a celebrated comedian who has won the Mark Twain Prize and the EGOT—to perform and accused her of having a “foul mouth.”

“Every word out of her mouth was like the f-word,” Trump said “She was so filthy, dirty, disgusting half the place left. I said I’d never hire her again.” He then called Goldberg a “loser.”

But…sir…

The hypocritical Trump, of course, is well known for profanity. He attacked NFL players who kneeled during the national anthem to protest police brutality as “sons of b—–es” and infamously called Haiti and several African nations “s–thole countries” during a government meeting. A New York Times analysis of his speeches published last week found he has used swear words 69 percent more often at rallies this year than he did when he first ran for president in 2016.

But that’s different, because he’s male, and pale, and rich, and evil.

And Trump’s attack on Goldberg wasn’t even his first broadside aimed at a View host that day. At an earlier rally in Scranton, Trump attacked her co-host Sunny Hostin as “dumber than Kamala.”

“She’s a dummy,” Trump told the crowd of Hostin. “I watched her over the years, that is one dumb woman. I’m sorry, women, she’s a dummy.”

At his Reading rally—after he finished disparaging Goldberg—Trump called Harris “a dumb person” before seemingly admitting his own staff have told him to tone down his boorish, sexist attacks on her. “Somebody said to me, one of my people, a nice person, a staff person said, ‘Sir, please, don’t call her dumb, the women won’t like it,’” he said, before insisting women “don’t care.”

A poll released last week by the Women and Politics Institute at American University’s School of Public Affairs found Trump trails Harris among women voters by 15 points.

It should be way more than 15 points.

Mount Holyoke College wants to have it both ways.

At Mount Holyoke College, the leading gender-diverse women’s college, students learn beyond boundaries, explore interests across disciplines and build skills and connections for a lifetime of purposeful leadership.

What thee helll is a gender-diverse women’s college?

Nothing, that’s what. A contradiction in terms. You can be a women’s something or you can be a gender-diverse something, but you can’t be both.

Its second most recent post is about “a vibrant community space dedicated to supporting LGBTQIA+ students, staff and faculty.” So they have gay male students and male students who are trans or queer or asexual or plus? But then they’re not a women’s college.

You have to pick one. You can’t do both, not because it’s not allowed, but because it’s not possible.

Something called “Attitude” tells us:

India Willoughby has slammed the Labour government, Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer and Health Secretary Wes Streeting over the party’s policies regarding the ban on hormone blockers and their stance on trans healthcare.

Speaking to Attitude on the red carpet at the Virgin Atlantic Attitude Awards, powered by Jaguar, Willoughby said: “I’m not exaggerating when I say that the Labour government are going to be responsible for the deaths of hundreds, possibly thousands, of trans people.”

Hahaha that’s funny, because exaggerating is exactly what he’s doing. He’s just making shit up, out of nothing. Look at Willoughby: is he dead? Is he approaching being dead? Not so much. He’s standing around in a red strapless dress, looking ridiculous but not dead.

“We are going through a very slow and quiet genocide,” she said.

Yahuh, so slow and so quiet that it can’t be detected at all, no matter how fine the instruments.

Everyone thinks that a genocide is all about death camps. Not necessarily.”

Nope, everyone doesn’t think that at all. Rwanda wasn’t death camps. Even the Holocaust wasn’t all death camps; they started out just shooting people, but decided that wasn’t efficient.

[He[ continued: “You’re stopping people transitioning. This is going to lead to suicides. Every study in the world has shown this leads to suicides. But Wes Streeting just does not care. I think it’s an absolute disgrace.”

Nobody’s stopping anybody “transitioning”; it can’t be done. People can’t change sex. Willoughby is dressed up in a bright red fluffy dress that starts at the tits and ends above the knees. He is 59 years old. Do you know a lot of 59 year old women who dress like that? The photo of him in it is hilarious, because he’s glowering like Sterling Heyden in Dr Strangelove, which doesn’t really jibe well with the pwetty dwess.

Oh ffs. Some pond scum is attacking the Internet Archive. Why? Because Palestine uh uh uh.

Tom Nichols in The Atlantic on the contrasts between George Washington and the wannabe dictator:

Donald Trump and his authoritarian political movement represent an existential threat to every ideal that Washington cherished and encouraged in his new nation. They are the incarnation of Washington’s misgivings about populism, partisanship, and the “spirit of revenge” that Washington lamented as the animating force of party politics. Washington feared that, amid constant political warfare, some citizens would come to “seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual,” and that eventually a demagogue would exploit that sentiment.

…

Most American presidents have had some sort of military experience. A few, like Washington, were genuine war heroes. All of them understood that military obedience to the rule of law and to responsible civilian authority is fundamental to the survival of democracy. Again, all of them but one.

During his term as president, Trump expected the military to be loyal—but only to him. He did not understand (or care) that members of the military swear an oath to the Constitution, and that they are servants of the nation, not of one man in one office. Trump viewed the military like a small child surveying a shelf of toy soldiers, referring to “my generals” and ordering up parades for his own enjoyment and to emphasize his personal control.

Trump was more than willing to turn the American military against its own people. In 2020, for instance, he wanted the military to attack protesters near the White House. “Beat the fuck out of them,” the president told the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Mark Milley. “Just shoot them.” Both Milley and Defense Secretary Mark Esper (a former military officer himself) talked their boss out of opening fire on American citizens.

Senior officers during Trump’s term chose loyalty to the Constitution over loyalty to Donald Trump and remained true to Washington’s legacy. Such principles baffle Trump—all principles seem to baffle Trump, and he especially does not understand patriotism or self-sacrifice. He is, after all, the commander in chief who stood in Arlington National Cemetery, looked around at the honored dead in one of the country’s most sacred places, and said: “I don’t get it. What was in it for them?”

Not someone we should put in a position to do it again.

No, he doesn’t say that.

“We’ve really got to stand up for the rights of trans people, yes we’ve got to hear those women who say that there’s a case for single sex spaces, I understand that, but, I do think that we’ve got to empathize and recognize the pain that so many people, so many trans people face and treat them with the respect that they deserve.”

The whole bit between the “yes” and the “but” is rushed and gabbled, while everything after that is slowed and said with great emphasis. It’s very very very clear that the “yes yes women blah blah” bit is a contemptuous hostile yesyesIknowallthat, the only function of which is to lead up to the but.

It couldn’t be more clear or more insulting.

Updating to add: Video credit: @Jonnywsbell

So, to cheer us up, here are Jesus and Mo and the barmaid.