Oh good, another heckuva job, Brownie.

“I am very satisfied,” acting Homeland Security Secretary Elaine Duke told reporters outside the White House. “I know it’s a hard storm to recover from but the amount of progress that’s been made, and I really would appreciate any support that we get. I know it is really a good news story in terms of our ability to reach people and the limited number of deaths that have taken place in such a devastating hurricane.”

Well, that’s because it takes a few days to die of dehydration and a few more to die of starvation. The deaths are expected to rise sharply as those few days tick by.

Tom Bossert, the White House homeland security adviser, expressed full confidence that the response effort is appropriately led and resourced and unfolding at a good pace.

“What I will tell you is that we are mobilizing and marshaling the resources of the United States of America in a way that is absolutely professional, fast, and adequate to meet the needs,” Bossert said alongside Duke.

“This is textbook and it’s been done well,” Bossert added later from the White House podium.

It’s only those silly people actually in Puerto Rico who don’t see it that way, and what do they know?

Duke’s suggestion that the federal response was a “good news story” struck some as tone deaf and reflected the perils of the Trump administration’s attempts to reassure Americans that the federal government is responding appropriately to the unfolding crisis.

Asked to clarify her comment that the government’s response to the storm is a “good news story,” Duke pointed to effective coordination between federal and local authorities and said there is “unification of command.”

Oh. Well that’s nice, I guess, but it loses sight of the actual goal, which is to keep people in Puerto Rico from dying in the horrible aftermath of the hurricane. It’s nice if everyone wears a clean uniform and all but it’s not really the core issue here.

President Donald Trump did not publicly address the situation in Puerto Rico on Thursday, but acknowledged a day earlier the difficulties of bringing quick relief to the island, calling it “a very difficult situation.”

“That place was just destroyed. That’s not a question of, gee, let’s dry up the water, let’s do this or that. I mean, that place was flattened. That is a really tough situation,” Trump told reporters on the South Lawn of the White House.

One that he didn’t so much as mention in his official Twitter dispatches for several days because he was so laser-focused on the dire emergency of football players kneeling instead of standing for Our Patriotic Song.

Oh yes, oh yes – a male researcher has worked out (to his own satisfaction at least) that lesbianism is something to do with pleasing men.

A new study that attempted to reveal the origins of lesbianism, is claiming that same-sex relationships in women only exist because it turns men on.

Published on Science Direct, the report by Menelaos Apostolou, a male professor at the University of Nicosia in Cyprus comes to the conclusion that lesbian and bisexual attraction all stems from male desire.

Well that does make sense if you think about it, because only men are actually human. Women are just simulacra, remotely operated from the planet Androcentro.

“My argument in the paper is this: A considerable proportion of men desire same-sex attractions in women, and this is one possible reason why many women have such attractions,” Apostolou told Pink News.

The study also suggests another possible reason for men being attracted to lesbian or bisexual women, is that if their partner cheats on them, they’re still in with a chance of having children.

Deffo. Say you’re a man. You don’t want Your Woman getting pregnant by another man, because kids are expensive, dude. What to do, what to do. Solution! You make it so that she has sex with women instead of men.

Ok but how? How do you make it that she does that?

With the magic of your mind, of course.

“A woman, driven by her sexual desires, may seek sexual contact outside of her long-term intimate relationship,” it writes.

“When this woman has sex with another woman she does not have sex with another man which translates into same-sex contact reducing the risk of cuckoldry.”

Totally. If there are any kids, they’ll be your kids, and thus the expense won’t be so irritating.

Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, surprised and a little hurt at the reaction to his habit of chartering planes every time he wants to go anywhere, even if it’s to Philly and the train would get there faster, says he’ll pay us back for the cost of his seat. Not for the cost of the flights, mind you, just for his seat. That would be a fair arrangement if a seat had been all it took to get him there, but the point is that he chartered whole entire planes, so that’s what he owes us for, minus the cost of a normal ticket.

He says he would also like to keep his job, please.

In a statement released on Thursday, he said, “Today, I will write a personal check to the US Treasury for the expenses of my travel on private charter planes. The taxpayers won’t pay a dime for my seat on those planes.”

The expense for his seat on those planes comes out to $51,887.31, according to an HHS spokesperson.

Politico has reported that the total cost of the private jets Price flew on was more than $400,000 and included trips to places where he has friends and family. Price is not covering the cost for support staff and others who flew with him on those charter planes, staff who otherwise would have flown commercial.

But hey, he’s paying 1/8 of the cost, so can’t we just accept that and be grateful? Why are we so grudging?

“What the Secretary has done is say that while all of this travel was approved by legal and HHS officials, the Secretary has heard the taxpayers’ concerns and wants to be responsive to them,” the HHS spokesperson said. “That’s why he’s taking the unprecedented step of reimbursing the government for his share of the travel.”

Ooh, special! Only, the trouble is, all the chartering of planes to go visit family is also unprecedented, and it came first, and he’s not paying it all back. So.

In his statement, Price made it clear he hopes to keep his job. “I have spent forty years both as a doctor and in public service putting people first,” Price said. “It has been my personal honor to serve the American people, and I look forward to continuing that service.”

But he’s working for Trump, so it’s not possible to believe that thing about putting people first. Sorry.

Inside Climate News on the depth of the disaster in Puerto Rico:

“It is very bad down there right now,” said Sven Rodenbeck, chief science officer for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s 2017 hurricane response. “For the vast majority of the island, there is no power. They have had flooding, and the health care system—many of the clinics and hospitals are closed. A lot of the drinking water systems are not operational, along with the waste water systems.”

Carmen Yulín Cruz, the mayor of San Juan, the capital of Puerto Rico, gave a blunt assessment of the situation.

“People are dying,” Cruz told CBS news on Tuesday. “This is the reality that we live in, the crude aftermath of a storm, a hurricane that has left us practically paralyzed.”

The disaster facing the U.S. territory—and mirrored to an extent in the nearby Virgin Islands—is exacerbated by long standing environmental justice issues facing a poor, underrepresented minority population on an island where climate experts have long warned of the increasing risks of such a catastrophe.

Witness Trump, not even noticing the problem for days because he was too busy ranting about football players and flags.

A request by several members of Congress to waive shipping restrictions known as the Jones Act to help get fuel and supplies to Puerto Rico was denied by the administration on Tuesday with the argument that it wasn’t necessary, Reuters reported. The administration did waive the Jones Act after Hurricanes Harvey and Irma hit Texas and Florida to help move fuel.

So…it’s not necessary why? Because we care about Texas and Florida but we don’t care about Puerto Rico?

“These storms are big, islands are small; if they get a direct hit it can overcome the entire place,” said John Mutter, a professor of earth and environmental sciences and of international and public affairs at Columbia University. “If all the first responders are unable to respond because the whole place is trashed, it creates a whole new level of disaster.”

Poor communities are always hit the hardest in events like this, Mutter said.

In the case of Puerto Rico, where nearly half the population is below the poverty level, the territory has no vote in Congress, and Texas and Florida are vying with the territory for limited federal disaster resources, inequity in recovery could be exacerbated.

Also a xenophobic racist is running the country.

They can’t even make sure the water is clean enough.

Even when EPA officials are able to inspect the island’s superfund sites, they may not be able to test surrounding floodwaters for toxins, Judith Enck, former EPA administrator for Region 2, which includes Puerto Rico, said.

“Typically they would either use a local lab which won’t be functioning because there’s no electricity, or they would ship the results back to the region 2 lab in Edison New Jersey, but there is no real shipping options,” Enck said.  “They can do inspections, see if there are cracks in oil tanks or thing like that, but I don’t see how they will actually be able to do any sampling.”

Now back to football.

Sunday we read a piece by Gaby Hinsliff about the disproportionate rage directed at BBC reporter Laura Kuenssberg.

Yesterday I read this in the Guardian from last July: Yvette Cooper ‘sick to death of vitriol’ directed at Laura Kuenssberg.

The Labour MP Yvette Cooper has launched a staunch defence of the BBC political editor, Laura Kuenssberg, as she called on Labour to be a “broad-based party” and its supporters to stop engaging in “vitriolic abuse” online.

Cooper defended Kuenssberg, regularly under fire for perceived political bias, as she set out a potential strategy to put Jeremy Corbyn in Downing Street and attacked the US president, Donald Trump.

She said Trump’s approach to politics and social media was “normalising hatred” and the problem was not confined to the right wing.

Today I read Helen Lewis on the subject:

During the bit of Jeremy Corbyn’s speech to Labour conference where journalists were just beginning to drift off, Buzzfeed Political Editor Jim Waterson posted about a story on The Canary. The pro-Corbyn “alternative” site had posted an article by Steve Topple headlined: “We need to talk about Laura Kuenssberg. She’s listed as a speaker at the Tory Party conference.”

As Waterson put it, “It took me two mins to call the event organiser and find out this is bollocks. She’s not speaking at Tory conference. Already going viral regardless.”

She’d been invited to speak – as had a lot of people, because that’s what happens.

There are two problems here. The first is the way that The Canary – an independent, reader-funded “alternative” news site – uses Kuenssberg as a traffic-driver for hate-clicks. This is a flimsy story – leftwing journalists speak at Tory conference, and vice versa – even if it were correct. Which it isn’t, as the BBC press office soon made clear.

@bbclaurak is not speaking at this @csjthinktank event. At Labour & Conservative conferences to report impartially for @BBCNews

— BBC News Press Team (@BBCNewsPR) September 27, 2017

The BBC is a target, BBC reporters are targets, but Kuenssberg is especially a target. Now why might that be do you suppose?

BBC editors receive constant complaints from politicians and their teams about their reporting. Why? Because they reach so many people. What is reported on the BBC matters.

However, it’s not hard to spot that some BBC staff get more flak than others. Those in front of camera are instantly recognisable, and so make better targets. So – let’s be honest – are women. There is a strain of misogyny which delights in being told that there are some women it’s OK to hate.

A huge strain. That joy in Socially Approved hatred of women seems to take up most of the oxygen in trans activism these days, which means it’s also taking over the left as a whole, especially when combined with the right-on hatred of Hillary Clinton.

The media should not give license to that impulse, and neither should anyone who calls themselves progressive. Internet arguments over the exact calibration of condemnation given to vitriol against Diane Abbott vs Laura Kuenssberg miss the fact that both left and right are united in finding some women acceptable targets for sexist abuse. Do as you would be done to.

The demonisation of Kuenssberg, which the Canary has taken such delight in, has had real world effects. The BBC political editor was given a bodyguard for Labour party conference, presumably as a result of threats. When the story was reported, a sizeable section of the online left, instead of believing that the BBC would make a sensible decision based on duty of care to an employee, decided to question whether it was an anti-Corbyn plot. Where were these threats? Why won’t you tell us what they are? The tone was conspiracist, which is frankly boggling to anyone who has ever clicked on the replies to a Kuenssberg tweet. The hate for her is real, it is often wildly divorced from anything she’s actually done, and it often takes overtly misogynist forms.

In fact, look at one of the first responses to the Canary’s own tweet of the story.

Same old same old.

Of course.

Louise Brealey tweets a Guardian article about the misogyny aimed at women who say or do things.

Missed this from @suzanne_moore on the grim misogyny trying to silence women in UK politics. https://t.co/EaufI27lIS

— Louise Brealey (@louisebrealey) September 25, 2017

Then she makes an observation about misogyny in history.

Men have been trying to shut us up since 2350 BC: punishment for a woman speaking out of turn was having her teeth smashed by a burnt brick.

— Louise Brealey (@louisebrealey) September 25, 2017

So of course a man dives in to say you’re calling us evil. Brealey says no she’s not, she’s saying men have silenced women throughout history.

https://twitter.com/mlbfan190/status/912412531653840896

Isn't you announcing that an article written by an eminent woman academic is bs a pretty good example of a man silencing a woman?

— Louise Brealey (@louisebrealey) September 26, 2017

He told her “go & slit your throat bitch” in a tweet that either he or Twitter deleted.

Silencing? What silencing?

Also, he thinks telling a woman “go & slit your throat bitch” is arguing facts with her, and that it’s reprehensible for her to block someone who tells her that.

https://twitter.com/mlbfan190/status/912800308023226374

The NSS points out that several schools in the UK are requiring girls to wear religious dress as part of their school uniform.

Girls in dozens of schools in England are forced to wear hijabs, according to National Secular Society research published in the Sunday Times today.

The NSS examined uniform policies on the websites of registered Islamic schools in England and found that girls potentially as young as four are instructed to wear the hijab as part of the official uniform policy.

Out of 142 Islamic schools that accept girls, 59 have uniform policies on their website that suggest a headscarf or another form of hijab is compulsory. This includes eight state-funded schools and 27 primary schools ­– three of which are state-funded.

In some cases the requirement is very explicit. At Feversham College in Bradford the policy states: “It is very important that the uniform is loose fitting and modest and that the hijaab is fitted closely to the head. The College uniform is COMPULSORY” (sic). Tayyibah Girls’ School in Hackney states: “The school is not willing to compromise on any issues regarding uniform.”

Girls at Al-Ihsaan Community College in Leicester are told they must wear either a “jilbaab or niqab.” The jilbaab is a long loose-fitting garment which covers the body except the hands, face and feet. Redstone Educational Academy in Birmingham includes the jilbaab as part of the compulsory uniform. Olive Secondary in Bradford says that girls’ faces “must be covered” outside.

Boys are people, and have freedom. Girls are objects, and have no freedom.

The NSS sent a letter.

Text of letter send to Justine Greening, Secretary of State for Education, Minister for Women and Equalities

We write with concerns that British school children are being forced to wear the hijab and other items of religious clothing whilst at school.

Our research indicates that girls as young as four are being made to wear the hijab as part of an official school uniform policy. The wearing of the hijab appears to be compulsory in eight of the 23 publicly funded Islamic schools that accept girls – including in three primary schools.

The majority of independent Muslim schools also require the hijab to be worn, including one school that further requires children’s faces to be covered outside of the school.

All schools have a duty to ‘actively promote’ individual liberty, to ensure young people leave school prepared for life in modern Britain.

In our view, the forcing of a child to wear the hijab, or any other item of religious clothing, is entirely at odds with this fundamental British value and with wider human rights norms on children’s rights. This conflict needs to be addressed.

We are further concerned that a number of non-Islamic schools appear to be acceding to fundamentalist pressure to incorporate the hijab into their uniform. Whilst we fully support efforts to allow children from Muslim backgrounds to better integrate, a desire to be ‘inclusive’ should not automatically lead to the accommodation of illiberal and repressive cultural norms.

Given the ‘justifications’ that lie behind so called ‘modesty’ codes, and its implicit sexualisation of children, we regard it as a matter of deep regret that so many schools are facilitating young girls being dressed in the hijab.

Whilst policies permitted the wearing of the hijab are so often framed in terms of choice and freedom, we urge you to recognise that this ‘freedom’ is often dictated by social pressure.

Education policy should empower girls and help them to make their own decisions once they are ready to do so. We therefore call on you to work alongside Ofsted to ensure that girls from Muslim backgrounds are supported to have free choices, rather than having so called ‘modesty’ codes imposed on them. No child should be obliged to wear the hijab, or any other article of religious clothing, whilst at school.

With regard to accommodations made by other schools, we urge you to issue guidance that makes it clear that a decision not to incorporate the hijab into a school uniform will be supported by the Government. The guidance should also make clear that the freedom to make accommodations to allow the wearing of the hijab does not extend to primary schools.

Stephen Evans, Campaigns Director, National Secular Society

Sara Khan, Director and Co-founder, Inspire

Amina Lone, Co-Director of the Social Action & Research Foundation

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, Journalist

Pragna Patel, director of Southall Black Sisters.

Gina Khan, Spokesperson, One Law for All

Yasmin Rehman, Women and Human Rights Activist

Iram Ramzan, Journalist

Zehra Zaidi, Director of Stand up, social activist and former Conservative PPC

I hope the minister takes it seriously.

Philip Bump at the Post also notices Donald’s slightly out of proportion obsession with The Flag while Puerto Rico runs out of oxygen and everything else.

Since last Friday, he’s tweeted about anti-police violence protests at NFL games some two dozen times — far more than he’s tweeted about North Korea or about health-care revision or about the special election in Alabama. It has consumed him. Four tweets on Saturday. Seven on Sunday. Eight on Monday. Four before 9 a.m. on Tuesday.

It’s astonishing to behold – that someone in his position can be that petty and childish, and proud of it.

After the contrast between his eager tweets about the NFL and apathy about Puerto Rico was raised by journalists on Monday, Trump tweeted several times about the island.

“Texas and Florida are doing great,” he wrote, “but Puerto Rico, which was already suffering from broken infrastructure and massive debt, is in deep trouble. Its old electrical grid, which was in terrible shape, was devastated. Much of the Island was destroyed, with billions of dollars owed to Wall Street and the banks which, sadly, must be dealt with. Food, water and medical are top priorities — and doing well.”

Wall Street and the banks – that’s the important thing here.

The message Trump is trying to convey with those tweets (which we cleaned up a bit for legibility) is pretty clear: If Puerto Rico is going badly, it’s not my fault. Why the territory’s debt was worth mentioning is hard to understand outside of the context of Trump portraying it as a place that is responsible for its own problems.

So DON’T LOOK AT HIM, ok?

Long-haul recovery efforts that bear no immediate signs of reward are not the sort of struggle Trump enjoys. It’s hard not to draw an obvious conclusion: Trump tweets more about the NFL than Puerto Rico because he is more interested in talking about the NFL than talking about Puerto Rico. I mean, they haven’t even paid their debts to Wall Street!

Plus…don’t forget…they speak Spanish there.

CNN on the current situation in Puerto Rico:

Nearly a week after Hurricane Maria slammed Puerto Rico, the US commonwealth looks something like this: Most are without power and phone service, with little hope of having it restored soon. Food and medicine are dwindling, especially for those isolated by impassable roads. And rescuers still are finding and removing desperate people from their demolished communities.

It is, in short, a humanitarian crisis, San Juan’s mayor told CNN on Tuesday.

You put all those together – roads impassable, power out, communications down, food and medicine running out – and you can’t help but have a humanitarian disaster. Emergency services are finding dialysis patients near death, people running out of oxygen.

Residents in remote areas are stranded with shrinking supplies, and some haven’t been able to contact their families to tell them they survived.

Coffee growers Gaspar Rodriguez and Doris Velez said the food they had left has spoiled.
“You work, work and work, and it’s for nothing,” Rodriguez said after losing everything.

Rescuers still are “removing people from hazardous conditions — (people who) are ill, that can’t move on their own,” said Carl Levon Kustin, a Federal Emergency Management Agency task force leader from California.

Trump tweeted about the situation this morning, but over the past several days he’s had a lot more to say about football players not respecting the flag enough than he has about the emergency in Puerto Rico.