Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Florida: “On the day after Hurricane Irma roared through their state, many Floridians emerged blinking from boarded-up homes and shelters on Monday to survey the damage — and were surprised it wasn’t a whole lot worse.”
* Don’t forget Houston: “Hurricane Harvey’s floodwaters have left this sprawling metropolis partially ruined and eager to return to something like normalcy. But the storm has also forced many thousands of people out of their homes. As a result, the city is engaged in one giant collective improvisation. Its defining creative endeavor is where to find a place to sleep.”
* The U.S. Supreme Court “agreed Monday to maintain President Trump’s temporary ban on travel to America by refugees. The court acted after the Trump administration urged the court to act quickly to keep the refugee ban in place. But the government gave up fighting over whether grandmothers and other relatives should also be subject to the ban.”
* This probably won’t be well received: “Pope Francis is urging President Donald Trump to rethink his decision to end a program protecting young immigrants from deportation, saying anyone who calls himself ‘pro-life’ should keep families together.”
* United Nations: “The Trump administration has backed away from some of the most stringent penalties it had sought to impose on North Korea, in an apparent effort to draw Russian and Chinese backing for a new raft of sanctions over the country’s nuclear weapons advances.”
* A story worth watching: “The congressional campaign of Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Alpine, has twice purchased Costco memberships. The ‘membership dues’ — $50 and $150 — were paid in November 2009 and December 2012, respectively. U-T Watchdog identified the payments in reviewing some of Hunter’s older expenses — an exercise federal investigators are also going through, as they review his personal spending of campaign funds.” * An odd accident: “Two of the three North Carolina lawmakers who had joined with prominent national politicians to oppose gerrymandering have now backtracked, saying they didn’t mean to add their names on an anti-gerrymandering letter sent to the Supreme Court. Rep. Mark Meadows and Rep. Walter Jones, both Republicans, signed on to the legal brief along with Democratic Rep. David Price.” * What Trump’s federal prosecutors have in common: “On Friday, the White House announced President Trump’s sixth wave of US attorney nominees. The latest batch brought the total number of nominees for the nation’s top federal prosecutor jobs up to 42. Of that group, one nominee — Jessie Liu, nominated to lead the US attorney’s office in Washington, DC — is a woman. The rest are men.” Anything to add? Consider this an open thread.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past." Recommended
