The Brett Bounce: President Trump is making the fight over Brett Kavanaugh’s appointment to the Supreme Court into a cause to motivate Republican voters next month.

Opening a ceremonial swearing of Kavanaugh at the White House last night, Trump apologized to Kavanaugh for the pain caused to him and his family by “a campaign of political and personal destruction based on lies and deception.” It’s just unheard of for a President to make such a political speech on the occasion of swearing in a justice. Every other member of the Court was present.

Trump also said Kavanaugh has been “proven innocent,” which is absolutely not true. The accusations of sexual misconduct against Kavanaugh were found to be murkily unproven, but not disproven either. Like Clarence Thomas, the haze is likely to hang over Justice Kavanaugh.

Earlier in the day Trump called the accusations against Kavanaugh “a hoax” and “fabricated,” brought by a “Democratic mob.” Trump told a gathering of police chiefs in Orlando, Fla., “It was very unfair what happened to him,” He continued, “False charges, false accusations. Horrible statements that were totally untrue.”

In a speech extolling his own love for the Constitution and promising to be a non-partisan judge following the law, Kavanaugh went out of his way to thank the Republicans who supported and voted for him, mentioning only West Virginia’s Joe Manchin, the sole Democrat who approved him.

Weather Report:Hurricane Michael, spinning this morning as a Category 1 with winds up to 90 mph, is taking aim at the Florida panhandle, expected to make landfall by about noon tomorrow. The storm is west of Key West and about 400 miles south of Panama City.

Both Florida and Alabama have issued emergency warnings. Extremely high waters could occur because this is the season of the King Tides, the naturally occurring highest tides of the year.

Nation:The limousine involved in the deaths of 20 people over the weekend in rural upstate New York had recently failed an inspection and its driver was not properly licensed, investigators say. New York State ordered the shutdown of the company called Prestige Limousine and impounded its other three vehicles. A criminal investigation has been opened.

Among the dead were four sisters, two brothers, and parents of small children. The party was for the 30^thbirthday of one of the sisters. The driver also was killed.

The company has a poor record and public documents show that the owner, Shahed Hussain, appears to be a man who was an informant for the FBI and testified in two prominent terrorism cases.

Reprieve:After appearing to have come to the brink of firing Deputy Attorney Gen. Rod Rosenstein, President Trump pulled back yesterday and said Rosenstein is safe on the job for now. Rosenstein oversees the Special Counsel investigation into possible Russian influence on the 2016 election. The two spent half an hour talking on Air Force One yesterday and Trump came off the plane saying, “He said he has a lot of respect for me, and he was very nice, and we’ll see.”

Broken China: Attempting to contain an international public relations crisis, the Chinese government announced that the missing chief of Interpol, Meng Hongwei, was arrested in his home country for an investigation of bribery and other crimes.

Although China has not said exactly what Meng is accused of doing, China’s Public Security Minister said, “We should deeply recognize the serious damage that Meng Hongwei’s bribe-taking and suspected violations of the law have caused the party and the cause of public security and deeply learn from this lesson.”

In the Chinese justice system you are guilty first, and rarely proven innocent later.

The Obit Page: Dave Anderson, a former columnist for The NY Timesand one of only three sportswriters to win the Pulitzer Prize, has died at age 89. Sports were his life and he considered writing about them to be literature.

Here are the first two paragraphs from his 1980 column, “The Food on the Table at the Execution”:

“Near the door of George Steinbrenner’s office in Yankee Stadium yesterday, there were two trays of bite-sized roast beef, turkey and ham sandwiches, each with a toothpick in it. As soon as 14 invited newsmen entered his office for the execution of Dick Howser as manager and the transfer of Gene Michael from general manager to dugout manager, Steinbrenner, the Yankees’ principal owner, looked around.

“ ‘Anybody want any sandwiches?’ he asked. ‘We’ve got a lot of sandwiches here.’ Gene Michael had piled four little roast beef sandwiches on a small plastic plate and he had a cup of coffee. But as he sat against the far wall, under a huge Yankee top-hat insignia and several enlarged photos of memorable Yankee Stadium moments, he was the only one eating when Dick Howser suddenly appeared and walked quickly to a chair in front of the table with the sandwiches.”

—Will Vinton, an animator who created the California Raisins for a state advertising campaign that became a national sensation, has died at age 70. The raisins danced to the tune of Marvin Gaye’s “I Heard it Through the Grape Vine.” Vinton coined the term “Claymation” to describe the  technique in which clay figures are shot frame by frame in changing poses to create the illusion of movement.

Interchangeable Parts:Hope Hicks, previously one of President Trump’s closest aides, is moving to Los Angeles to become a public relations executive at the parent company of the Fox News Channel. Her last job at the White House was communications director. At Fox she’ll be executive vice president and chief communications officer.

Former Fox News  executive Bill Shine is now communications director at the White House.

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