Stay safe! Our prayers and thoughts will be with you. I know you’ve probably been through countless storms in the past, but just never forget that your property and items can be replaced; you and your loved ones cannot!

-Russ

Something different.

https://www.macleans.ca/opinion/as-canada-makes-marijuana-legal-america-looks-to-prohibition-era-tactics/

I'm not sure if the US can absorb legalized pot on the federal level but, by 2020 it should be front and center. It solves some problems; decriminalization will free up some jail space, and save money from the courts to the housing and feeding of 'dime-baggers', medicinal research can take leaps and bounds without restrictions and throw the added jobs and taxation into the mix...it's a winner.

LL&P

Good luck to you! I hope you have a near miss; I just did.
I was having lunch with a guy, and we decided to gamble on the check, playing Kavenaugh Over-Under. The rules are simple. One party (him) picks a number of minutes before MSNBC mentions Kav's name. The other (me) bets that it will be more or less time before they do. The clock starts when his phone connects to the live feed on Tune-In. Commercials stop the clock.

He picked 2min 30 sec. I took the under. When it connected, there was somebody from NHC talking about the hurricane, and my heart sank. I was starting to try to remember which credit card had some available credit for me to pay, and then it happened. With 40 seconds to go, the hurricane was forgotten, and the reporting turned to the open DC Circuit seat to replace 39,38,37 ... Kavenaugh! Bingo.

Good ol' MSNBC. I knew they weren't going to let this go. But it's dangerous right now, what with the hurricane. So if you play yourself, and with Haley resigning, I wouldn't be as foolish as I was. Only dumb luck bailed me out. Don't take the under for anything less than about four minutes.

I myself here in Tallahassee Florida am in the direct path and may lose touch for a while. I plan to hunker down in a good sturdy brick house and make final preparations today. Good luck to everyone!

Ironically, Ford may have to cut production of some models, potentially reducing U.S. jobs, as a result of China's tit-for-tat tariffs.

by Paul A. Eisenstein / Oct.08.2018 / 12:47 PM ?CDT

Ford has already warned that President Donald Trump's auto tariffs have impacted the company to the tune of $1 billion, and the president’s trade policies threaten to play havoc with Ford’s ongoing reorganization, Shanks told NBC News.

Trump and Ford have been squaring off since well before the 2016 election, when then-presidential candidate originally threatened to impose hefty tariffs on vehicles Ford intended to start importing from a factory in Mexico. The carmaker eventually scrubbed that plan, but rather than return production to the U.S. it decided to move it to China.

https://www.nbcnews.com/business/autos/trump-s-tariffs-have-already-cost-ford-1b-now-it-n917756

What you've captured particularly is the fluidity of the situation. If a month can be a lifetime in normal politics, it could be several lifetimes measured in Trump-time. We're in an environment when events of a single week can cause (and already have caused) neck-snapping reversals of fortune for the two sides, often several in a row.

I'm with you. This is not the time for Democrats to assume anything, least of all that they can suddenly best the Republicans at a game that they've been winning for the better part of a decade. It's time to buckle down and assume the worst possible outcome, and then try to ameliorate it.

Democrats that live in states where early voting has already begun should have already voted, or be planning to in the next few days. They should then spend the next month getting every other democrat that they know to get to a voting booth. They should be offering to drive their friends to and from the polls. They should know every name on their local ballot by heart, so that they can counter the perennial argument of less informed voters that they don't know enough to reach a decision.

We should, in other words, put at least as much effort into this election as the white supremacists already have. Because, believe me, they know who they're voting for, and have all of their friends lined up to do the same.

I wouldn't count Trump out in the month remaining...
Dems should drop the Mr. K fiasco, concentrate on healthcare, push congressional oversight and make women, and their role in the politics of today, run as a theme throughout it all.

LL&P