The week began with what is absurdly called a “debate” and ended with a clear example of the grit, decency, and inventiveness of ordinary people and the sloth, idiocy, and incompetence of our government in the face of a devastating hurricane in Appalachia.

I didn’t watch the debate and like the great Iowahawk (David Burge) I consider this one of the worst lies told concerning them, “here is our panel of undecided voters.” If you are undecided at this stage, you are a moron and shouldn’t vote, or a liar. The second lie about them is that the moderators are informed and neutral and will keep their promise not to “fact check” the Republican or stack the questions to promote the Democrats’ agenda rather than exploring the issues voters in survey after survey indicate are their priorities. Paul Sperry, to take one example, reveals that the husband of CBS moderator Margaret Brennan, who was rude to J.D. Vance, had been a strategic advisor to the anti-Trump Lincoln Project. Her husband, Yado Yakub, donated to the project, and was a foreign policy adviser to Biden in 2000 and 2001. Moreover, Yakub, a Muslim, wrote a paper arguing that sharia law embodies “justice and tolerance.”

Really, should we expect more of the network that brought us the Mapes-Rather concoction about G.W. Bush’s military service or faked car mechanical failures on “60 Minutes”? Good for Trump in refusing to do a “60 Minutes” interview until Lesley Stahl apologizes for having made fun of his claim that the Hunter laptop was genuine and not Russian disinformation in an earlier interview of him.

Despite all this nonsense, the moderators could not make Tim Walz look good enough. Hence they fell back on demanding that Republican candidates denounce former president Trump for insisting that the 2020 election was rigged.