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–> A midday take on what’s happening in politics and how to have a sense of humor about it.*
*Ha. Haha. Hahah. Sniff. Haha. Sniff. Ha–breaks down crying hysterically.
The Hill’s 12:30 Report: Trump says Dems inflated Puerto Rico death toll| House cancels Friday votes as Florence starts to hit coast| Kavanaugh vote delayed one week| Left’s hardball tactics on Kavanaugh threaten to backfire| House, Senate get deal on second package of spending bills| Trump finds ally in Rand Paul| What to watch in NY primary
LATEST WITH HURRICANE FLORENCE
Ready or not, Florence is coming:
Hurricane Florence is expected to make landfall tonight or tomorrow as a large Category 2 hurricane. The latest forecast from The Weather Channel: https://wxch.nl/2xdCoyE
Where Florence is now: “As of Thursday morning, Florence’s eye was located about 170 miles east-southeast of Wilmington, North Carolina, moving northwestward.” https://wxch.nl/2xdCoyE
Parts of Florence have already hit the Carolinas: The outer bands of Hurricane Florence have landed on the North Carolina coast. https://wapo.st/2p4eP7z
The infuriating part — why some people have chosen not to evacuate: CNN has been interviewing residents who have decided to ride out the storm. Here are the reasons: https://cnn.it/2MrCbgS
Anheuser-Busch is canning emergency water: Anheuser-Busch has halted beer production in Georgia and sent 300,000 cans of water to Hurricane Florence victims. https://fxn.ws/2OoHxLm
This is pretty cool — here’s a video from space, getting closer and closer to the hurricane: It looks massive from this angle. http://bit.ly/2Nb2U6n
Tidbit about a local news outlet covering the storm: The last time a major hurricane hit North Carolina, the Raleigh News & Observer had 250 people in the newsroom covering the storm — and the paper was named a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in breaking news. But this time, there are just 65 journalists. What this means for coverage: https://wapo.st/2NGTyyN
Livestream of the beach in Kitty Hawk, N. C.: http://bit.ly/2Mrmzdl
Video of Jennette’s Pier in the Outer Banks: From this morning at 7:30 a.m. http://bit.ly/2NaoQyM
Full size photos: http://bit.ly/2CNZgdY
HOW THIS WILL AFFECT THE D. C. AREA:
The gist: It won’t really affect D. C. Via the Washington Post’s Capital Weather Gang, the storm is expected to skirt the DMV, leaving us with a warm, humid weekend with some showers. Remnants from Florence could arrive early next week, though. The full D. C. forecast: https://wapo.st/2x6pPpI
NEW — House votes canceled for tomorrow: Friday votes in the House have been canceled. The last votes are at 4 p.m. today. http://bit.ly/2N9ZbpD
It’s Thursday. I’m Cate Martel with a quick recap of the morning and what’s coming up. Send comments, story ideas and events for our radar to cmartel@thehill.com, @CateMartel and on Facebook .
NEWS THIS A. M.
Just announced — we have a Brett Kavanaugh vote date:
The Senate Judiciary Committee has decided to postpone the committee vote on Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh ‘s nomination until Sept. 20 at 1:45 p.m. Is this surprising?: Not at all. Any one member can move to postpone the vote. http://bit.ly/2p5fOV5
HOW THE KAVANAUGH FIGHT COULD BLOW UP IN DEMS’ FACES: Via The Hill’s Jordain Carney, “Hardball tactics are threatening to backfire on the left in the final weeks of the high-stakes fight over Brett Kavanaugh ‘s Supreme Court nomination. GOP senators blasted Democrats and their liberal supporters on Wednesday over what Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) called a ‘harassment campaign’ against Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), who a day earlier revealed a staffer in her office had been threatened with rape by people calling to oppose Kavanaugh’s confirmation.” Yikes. Other threats to Collins: http://bit.ly/2N6o1XD
Nothing like hashing out a previous natural disaster while waiting for an impending natural disaster:
This morning, President Trump accused Democrats of inflating Hurricane Maria’s death toll in Puerto Rico “to make me look bad.” http://bit.ly/2xb6IK1
He tweeted: “3000 people did not die in the two hurricanes that hit Puerto Rico. When I left the Island, AFTER the storm had hit, they had anywhere from 6 to 18 deaths. As time went by it did not go up by much. Then, a long time later, they started to report really large numbers, like 3000.” http://bit.ly/2MsCvfc
And 10 minutes late — this was a long 10 minutes knowing the rest of this thought was coming: President Trump added, “This was done by the Democrats in order to make me look as bad as possible when I was successfully raising Billions of Dollars to help rebuild Puerto Rico. If a person died for any reason, like old age, just add them onto the list. Bad politics. I love Puerto Rico!” http://bit.ly/2Qpg2CV
Where the data came from: “2,975 was the number of excess deaths estimated by an independent team of researchers from [George Washington University’s Milken Institute School of Public Health] after reviewing government death certificate data.” http://bit.ly/2p3GmWP
REACTION FROM SAN JUAN MAJOR CARMEN YULÍN CRUZ: She tweeted, “This is what denial following neglect looks like: Mr Pres in the real world people died on your watch. YOUR LACK OF RESPECT IS APPALLING!” Full reaction: http://bit.ly/2MtdAIj
THE NEW YORK TIMES’S MAGGIE HABERMAN WEIGHED IN: “People who have died from 9/11-related illnesses working on the pile died because of the event. Puerto Rico not the first time in history that event-related deaths have been characterized this way.” http://bit.ly/2N8LSGi
Shutdowns are more of December thing anyway:
Via The Hill’s Niv Elis, “the House and Senate have reached an agreement on their second package of spending bills and have included a continuing resolution for several other bills in the package to keep those agencies funded through December 7.” http://bit.ly/2x8FMeI
Speaking of FEMA…:
Via Politico’s Daniel Lippman and Eliana Johnson, “[Federal Emergency Management Agency] administrator Brock Long is the target of an ongoing Department of Homeland Security inspector general investigation into whether he misused government vehicles during his commutes to North Carolina from Washington, according to three people familiar with the matter, including current and former administration officials.” https://politi.co/2x6QbYD
IN OTHER NEWS
The fairly odd couple:
Via the Hill’s Alexander Bolton, “Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) has defended President Trump on some of his most controversial moves, going against the prevailing sentiment of the libertarian movement with which he and his father, former Rep.
