Officials in Texas are casting blame on the National Weather Service (NWS) for failing to forecast catastrophic flooding that has killed at least 27 people. NWS was among the government agencies targeted by the Department of Government Efficiency in its effort to gut the federal bureaucracy, losing approximately 600 staffers. After the cuts, the agency—which was already understaffed—began to prepare to offer “degraded” forecasting services, facing “severe shortages” of meteorologists, according
An ad hominem would be if I said something like ‘nobody should listen to this guy because he’s a sociopath,’ it’s not just a retort for when anyone makes any uncharitable characterization of your argument. (It’s also not even evidence that an argument is invalid, that’s called the fallacy fallacy)
Which, if you want to accuse me of committing an ad hominem by characterizing your argument as ‘fuck them kids,’ you might not want to immediately go straight to how they deserved it for living in a red state.