Today’s edition of quick hits:
* Hurricane Florence “is the strongest storm to target the Carolinas and Virginia region ‘in decades,’ the Federal Emergency Management Agency said Tuesday in issuing dire warnings for the hundreds of thousands of people ordered to evacuate before the Category 4 storm makes landfall.”
* The US vs the ICC: “Afghan rights workers warned Tuesday that a blistering U.S. attack on the International Criminal Court investigating war crimes allegations will strengthen a climate of impunity in Afghanistan, prolong the war and embolden those committing acts of violence.”
* International opposition to Trump can be a problem: “President Trump has canceled a planned trip to Ireland, the Irish government said Tuesday, amid planned demonstrations to protest his climate policies, international relations and treatment of immigrants, women and minorities.”
* Iraq: “In scenes that appeared to mirror the explosion of protests across southern Iraq in July, government headquarters and the offices of many of Iraq’s most powerful political parties and militias have been attacked and set ablaze by protesters in the oil-rich southern province of Basra. The Iranian Consulate in Basra was ransacked and burned Friday. As a fractured Shiite Islamist bloc continues to wrangle over power months after national elections in May, its core constituency in the Shiite south is in open revolt.”
* Good advice: “Warning of the risks of ‘runaway’ global warming, the United Nations secretary general, António Guterres, on Monday called on global leaders to rein in climate change faster.” * The clean-up is expected to take weeks: “A Texas company says one of its pipelines has spilled more than 8,000 gallons of jet fuel into a river in the northeastern Indiana city of Decatur.” * And given the date, I think it’s fair to say Donald Trump’s long history of “lying about 9/11 and exploiting it for personal gain” tells us something important about his character. 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
