The Hurricane: Irma is now a Category 1 after passing Tampa heading north to Georgia. The storm reduced in power as it crawled up the west side of Florida, hitting land as a Category 3, then a 2, and continuing to diminish in power.

The winds may not have been as destructive as feared, but Irma is dragging a storm surge and flooding that may do a lot of damage. Rain in some areas may fall at two inches an hour.

In the Tampa area, Irma created a “reverse surge”, sucking water out of the bay.  In Sarasota Bay, a group of friends rescued two manatees that had been stranded in the muck.

In Miami, palm trees bowed in the wind as streets were covered with wind-whipped water and two construction cranes collapsed. About 4.5 million customers lost power and a power company spokesman said some men were going to homes pretending to be electrical workers, robbing homeowners at gunpoint. Looters were arrested in Fort Lauderdale.

Connecting natural disaster and political policy, President Trump said he plans to ask Congress to expedite tax reform. “I think now, with what’s happened with the hurricane, I’m gonna ask for a speed up,” he said, not explaining the connection between the two. “I wanted a speed up anyway, but now we need it even more so. So we need to simplify the tax code, reduce taxes very substantially on the middle class, and make our business tax more globally competitive.”

The Nationalist:  Former presidential adviser Steve Bannon told CBS’s Charlie Rose last night on 60 Minutes that, “The Republican establishment is trying to nullify the 2016 election. That’s a brutal fact we have to face.” He said, “They do not want Donald Trump’s populist, economic nationalist agenda to be implemented. It’s very obvious. It’s obvious as– it’s obvious as the– it’s obvious as night follows day is what they’re trying to do.”

The nationalist Bannon was pushed out of the administration by the new Chief of Staff John Kelly. He returned to running Breitbart News, and may still have influence with the President.

Bannon said the illegal immigrants known as “Dreamers” brought to the US as children should “self deport” when their work permits run out. These are people raised as Americans, but Bannon said, “There’s no path to citizenship, no path to a green card and no amnesty. Amnesty is non-negotiable.”

He said, “Economic nationalism is what this country was built on. The American system. Right? We go back to that. We look after our own. We look after our citizens, we look after our manufacturing base, and guess what? This country’s gonna be greater, more united, more powerful than it’s ever been. And it’s not– this is not astrophysics. OK?”

Denial Ain’t a River: Appearing on CNN’s “State of the Union,” Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain said he can’t explain why so many of his party’s politicians deny the existence of climate change. “I don’t know because I can’t divine their motives,” McCain said. “There are things happening with the climate in the world that is unprecedented. We have to understand that the climate may be changing and we can take commonsense measures which will not harm the American people.”

About being treated for brain cancer McCain said, “I’m facing a challenge, but I’ve faced other challenges.”  He said though, “Every life has to end one way or another.”

The Obit Page: Don Ohlmeyer, the energetic television producer who once steered Monday Night Football for ABC and went on to lead NBC to entertainment domination, has died of cancer at age 72. When Ohlmeyer arrived at NBC it was dying, but he ended up greenlighting a string of hits, including “ER,” “Friends” “Frasier,” and the blockbuster “Seinfeld,”

Pennywise at the Box Office: The horror movie “It” based on a Stephen King novel broke the summer box office doldrums and smashed the September record, bring in $117 million. The movie is about a demonic clown named Pennywise who emerges from the sewer to prey on children. Very entertaining.

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