Obviously, this gives us a forecast challenge, but I think we’re in two very distinct camps right now.

Camp 1: A strong tropical storm or hurricane that tracks off the Texas coast toward Louisiana arriving Wednesday-ish.

Camp 2: A depression or loosely organized tropical storm with a lot of rain that impacts Texas, especially at the coast Tuesday through Thursday, coming ashore between Galveston and Cameron, LA.

I am not a betting man, but I would probably say the odds right now are 70/30 in favor of camp 2, but that 30 percent is a weighty one given that the system could be a hurricane in that scenario. Normally, I’d discount the ICON model, but given its performance this season and the consistency it has had with track and intensity here, I think there’s merit to considering it with this particular system.

As the Fraternal Order of Police throws its support behind the first criminal to lead a major-party presidential ticket, I'm guessing the FOP didn't read my latest list:

The Top 10 Reasons Trump Deserves To Be Seen As An Opponent Of Law Enforcement.

In early August, Donald Trump sat down with Fox Business’ Maria Bartiromo and claimed Vice President Kamala Harris doesn’t have support from law enforcement. As The Hill reported, there’s fresh evidence to the contrary.

In a letter signed by 101 law enforcement officials, the group declared that Harris and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) are “the only candidates we trust to keep our communities safe.” The group cited Harris’ work as a prosecutor, district attorney, and attorney general, during which she took on issues ranging from child sexual assault to transnational crime organizations. ... It also cited Walz’s investment in law enforcement in Minnesota, including $300 million in public safety training and community engagement.

It’s worth emphasizing that this group includes officials with ranks like sheriff, police chief, retired chief of police, retired detective, captain, state trooper, and FBI special agent.......

The fact remains, however, that the idea of the Republican candidate being a friend to law enforcement continues to be a tough sell. In fact, given the circumstances, it’s probably worth revisiting The Top 10 Reasons Donald Trump Deserves To Be Seen As An Opponent Of Law Enforcement.

10. Trump has repeatedly lashed out at those he’s described as “dirty cops,” as part of a larger offensive against law enforcement. He’s also condemned law enforcement officials as “fascists” and accused law enforcement officials of pushing “fake” crime rate statistics as part of a political plot to help Democrats.

9. A jury recently found Trump guilty of 34 felonies, and he’s still facing dozens of other criminal counts across multiple jurisdictions.

8. Trump is facing civil suits from police officers who sustained injuries during the Jan. 6 riot the Republican instigated.

7. Trump has condemned common law enforcement tools, including plea agreements for witnesses who cooperate with prosecutors.

6. Trump abused his powers by intervening in criminal cases in which the defendants were political allies, letting politically connected suspects go free — even after some pleaded guilty — and undermining law enforcement in the process.

5. Trump has undermined law enforcement by abusing his pardon powers, in one case even commuting the sentence of a man accused of helping murder of a police officer.

4. Trump lashed out at the police officer who shot Ashli Babbitt as a “thug” and a “coward” who deserves to be vilified.

3. Trump has promised day-one pardons for insurrectionists, many of whom violently clashed with police officers.

2. While in office, Trump saw law enforcement as a political weapon he can wield at his convenience, which led him to urge law enforcement officials to enforce his political vendettas and help Republicans win elections.

1. Trump has expressed support for prosecuting members of the Capitol police.

House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Jordan, a sycophantic supporter of the former president, declared earlier this year via social media, “No one Backs The Blue more than President Trump.”

It was difficult to believe when the Ohio congressman first made the comment in March, and it hasn't improved with age.

Why Trump's word salad on child care matters:
- He still can't speak coherently about public policy
- Evidence of deterioration
- He doesn't understand the basics of his own tariffs plan

No wonder the White House called him out.

Has it not occurred to the Ohio senator that if parents had access to free familial labor, they’d already be taking advantage of that? Watching the exchange, I found myself wondering how many Americans saw this and thought, “My relatives can help watch the kids? Why didn’t I think of that? Thank goodness for these valuable insights from JD Vance!”

But it was a day later when Vance’s running mate faced the same question and responded with an even less coherent answer. As a HuffPost report summarized:

Donald Trump on Thursday got a question about what he would do as president to make child care more affordable and accessible. The answer he gave might charitably be described as a rambling non sequitur, or less charitably as policy gibberish.

This was one of those things that people really have to see to fully appreciate.

https://x.com/KamalaHQ/status/1831753100446589285

.....But appearing on MSNBC the morning after the GOP candidate’s comments, White House Senior Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates raised an underappreciated point: “If you have any idea what the hell that answer means, you’re a better detective than I am, because these tariffs that he wants to apply across the board would amount to a $4,000 tax increase on working families. And that is something that authorities across the private sector are warning would be devastating for our economy and would depress economic growth.”

https://x.com/citizenwillis/status/1832025821877305757

To the extent that Trump said any understandable words in his response, the Republican seemed to suggest that he’ll impose tariffs on trading partners, which he believes will generate money that he can then apply to child care costs. But that’s bonkers: Not only will the tariffs fail to create some giant pool of money for Trump to draw from, but those same tariffs would raise costs for the families looking for relief.

The GOP candidate, in other words, has the entire policy dynamic backwards.

The charitable explanation is that Trump keeps touting a "strongman" leadership style because the former president, who's never taken a political science course, doesn't know what the word means.

Then there's the uncharitable explanation.

Donald Trump hasn’t made much of an effort to hide his over-the-top support for Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, despite — or more likely, because of — the prime minister’s authoritarian takeover of his country. As an Associated Press report noted in March, the Republican’s embrace of the Hungarian leader reflects the former president’s support for “autocratic leaders who are part of a global pushback against democratic traditions.”

But when praising the prime minister, the former president also tends to use a specific word. In January, for example, he defended Orbán at a rally, telling supporters, “Some people don’t like him because he’s too strong. It’s nice to have a strongman running the country.”

During his latest Fox News interview, Trump used nearly identical phrasing. The New York Times reported:

At his town hall tonight, Donald Trump praised Viktor Orban, the prime minister of Hungary, who has embraced policies American conservatives have looked to as a model. Trump bemoaned the state of international conflicts that have raged in the last few years and seemed to suggest he could solve problems with force. “Sometimes you need a strongman; he’s a strongman,” Trump said of Orban.

Right off the bat, the fact that Trump and his allies have embraced Orbán and his authoritarian approach says a great deal about the radicalization of Republican politics and the party’s weakening support for democracy......

Circling back to our earlier coverage, the most benign explanation for such rhetoric is that the former president knows effectively nothing about political science, political history, and political philosophy, and as such, it’s possible that he has no idea what a “strongman” even is. From Trump’s perspective, perhaps the word just sounds nice because it combines “strong” and “man.” It’s not as if people should want a weak man leading a country, right?

But as NYU’s Ruth Ben-Ghiat, who literally wrote the book on the subject, told Time magazine a few years ago, “Strongmen are a subset of authoritarian who require total loyalty, bend democracy around [their] own needs, and use different forms of machismo to interact with their people and with other rulers.”

All of which brings us to the uncharitable explanation: Trump knows full well what a “strongman” leadership style entails, and when he declared that countries sometimes “need a strongman,” it was the latest piece of evidence that the Republican nominee is effectively running on an authoritarian platform......

Ahead of the 2024 elections, he’s doing it again. The Republican nominee continues to make positive comments about the man who earned the “Butcher of Baghdad” label. He offers gushing admiration for Beijing’s “ruthless” control over China’s population. He struggles to contain how impressed he is with his benefactor in Moscow.

And he applauds Orbán because he simply dictates, “This is the way it’s going to be.”

Trump keeps telling everyone the kind of leader he wants to be. Voters would be wise to listen.

Former Trump adviser charged as DOJ targets Russian influence schemes; Trump's a trader to our democracy involved with Putin's plan to help this criminal felon lying scumbag stinky butt trader land in our White House; but never again, not going back

For those who still, even now, insist that the Russia scandal has been discredited, this hasn’t been a great week. In fact, as NBC News reported, the broader story took an important turn when the Justice Department indicted a contributor to a Russian state-run TV channel, charging him and his wife with violating U.S. sanctions and money laundering.

The indictment, filed and unsealed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, accuses Dmitri Simes, 76, and his wife, Anastasia Simes, 55, of participating in a scheme to violate U.S. sanctions for the benefit of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster and to launder money obtained through that scheme.

If Simes’ name sounds at all familiar, it’s not your imagination: The dual U.S.-Russian citizen worked as an advisor to Donald Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, and as NBC News’ report added, Simes’ name also “appeared numerous times in the report compiled by special counsel Robert Mueller on his investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election.”.....

For all the chatter in far-right circles about the Russia scandal being a “hoax,” a Washington Post analysis explained, the new indictment "reinforces that it wasn’t. Russia began trying to influence American politics a decade ago, ultimately finding a sympathetic ally in Trump. Now, instead of trying to make fake personalities who can elevate contentious issues to Russia’s benefit, there’s a stable of Trump-allied voices who already are.”

This was published before the Justice Department charged a former Trump advisor with allegedly participating in a scheme to violate U.S. sanctions for the benefit of the Russian state-controlled broadcaster.