Aftermath: Florida woke up to clear blue skies yesterday and shocking  hurricane damage in Mexico Beach and Panama City on the panhandle. The storm erased whole neighborhoods and ripped roofs and facades off buildings while sinking and piling up hundreds of boats. Aerial video shows concrete pads where homes and buildings used to sit. Tyndall Air Force Base was wrecked after its squadron of F-22 Stealth Fighters was flown to safety.

Gov. Rick Scott described it as “unimaginable destruction.” The former mayor of Mexico Beach said, ““The mother of all bombs doesn’t do any more damage than this.”

At least six people were confirmed dead in the storm and rescue crews were working their way through the rubble looking for more dead and injured. Witnesses said security alarms and beeping smoke detectors made a haunting sound in the wasted landscape.

At least 900,000 homes and businesses lost power. Landline phones and cellphones have no connection.

Yikes: Rapper/celebutante Kanye West visited President Trump at the White House yesterday and delivered a rambling 10-minute speech that sounded like he was channeling the President himself, including the following about wearing a “Make America great Again” hat:

“I think it’s bravery that helps you beat this game called life. You know they tried to scare me to not wear this hat. My own friends. But this hat gives me a different power in a way. You know my dad and my mom separated, so I didn’t have a lot of male energy in my home. And also I’m married to a family that, you know, not a lot of male energy going on. It’s beautiful though. You know it’s something about, you know I love Hillary, I love everyone. Right. But the campaign, ‘I’m with Her’ just didn’t make me feel, as a guy, that didn’t get to see my dad all the time. Like a guy that could play catch with his son. It was something about when I put this hat on, it made me feel like Superman. You made a Superman. That’s my favorite superhero and made a Superman cape for me. Also as a guy that looks up to you, looks up to Ralph Lauren, looks up to American industry guys, nonpolitical, no bulls–t — put the beep on it, however you wanna do it, five seconds delay — and just gets it done.”

Kanye claims he has his bipolar disorder under control.

Injudicious Review:Chief Justice John Roberts has asked the US Court of Appeals in Denver to weigh ethical complaints lodged against the new Justice Brett Kavanaugh regarding his behavior during his Senate hearing.

The complaints were filed with Kavanaugh’s former court, the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia and Roberts re-assigned the matter to an impartial panel. Kavanaugh has been accused of demonstrating political bias and a temperament inconsistent with being a judge.

Steve Dennings writes in Forbes.com that Kavanaugh “was dismissive of the inquiry and was careless on matters of fact that had been asserted by other potential witnesses on the subject under discussion. He made obfuscating responses to questions about the meaning of words. He made no apparent effort to hold emotions in check and shouted at U.S. Senators and accused them of wrongdoing. He repeatedly sought to shift the attention and blame to others for what was taking place. He resisted further legal inquiry into the issues under discussion. He approached the inquiry with an attitude of entitlement and self-pity. His conduct was remarkably unprofessional.”

The Market: The Dow Jones fell another 546 points yesterday, a drop of just over two percent. We should say that during the current selloff the numbers are high because the market averages have grown so much over the years, but the percentages are relatively low.

Activity in Asian markets today suggests that the selloff may be tapering.

The Roundup: Pope Francis has accepted the resignation of Washington’s archbishop, Cardinal Donald Wuerl, who’s been under attack for his weak response to sexual abuse. — Turkey says it has an audio recording of the arrest, torture, and murder of Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi inside his country’s consulate in Istanbul.

Suggested Reading: In an essay in National Affairs, Jonathan Rauch contemplates the nature of what is knowable in the disinformation age of Donald Trump.

Rauch says, “Trump’s most important contribution to the trolling of the American mind is not what he says, but that it is impossible to ignore what he says. In the past, the constitution of knowledge dealt with and contained alt-truth by ignoring and sidelining it. For generations, such marginalization allowed Christian Scientists and astrologists and conspiracy theorists and many other purveyors of alternative realities to believe what they believe without disrupting science and society. But there is just no way to marginalize an American president. He can set the agenda and dominate the news. He can turn the White House into a baloney factory. He can impanel a public commission to investigate a claim he completely made up. All of which, and more, he has done.”

Read it here:

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