RINSE AND REPEAT:  Hurricane Milton hit the Florida Gulf Coast as a Category 3 storm with winds of 120 mph, spinning off tornadoes, showering heavy rain, and pushing a storm surge of floodwater.  Milton has already crossed the state and moved through Orlando into the Atlantic as a Category1.

  Hurricane Milton did not turn out to be as catastrophic as feared but Florida has still taken a hit and the extent of damage will become clearer during the day.

  Water rescues are underway this morning with people being retrieved from flooded homes and buildings.

  Several people were reported killed by a tornado that tore through a retirement community. As many as three million people have been left without power and the storm winds ripped the roof off the stadium that is home to the Tampa Bay Rays baseball team that was being used to house emergency workers. A construction crane toppled onto the side of the Tampa Bay Times building.

IT’S POLITICAL: Kamala Harris has raised $1 billion for her campaign since entering the race for president in July, more than Donald Trump has raised in all of 2024, The NY Times reports. While the billion dollars by itself is not a record, Harris did it in a stunning amount of time.

  The Vice President has been on a tour of non-traditional interviews drinking a Miller High Life beer Tuesday night on “The Late Show With Stephen Colbert.” “The champagne of beers,” she said.

  Harris has been criticized for not separating herself from policies of the Biden administration. On ABC’s “The View” when asked if there was a decision she would have made different from Biden she said, “There is not a thing that comes to mind,”

  Yesterday on CNN Harris denounced “dangerous and unconscionable” claims by Trump and other Republicans that the Biden administration has failed to provide emergency help for hurricane disaster areas and whipped up fear among Floridians. “The last thing they deserve is to have a so-called leader make them more afraid than they already are,” Harris said.

  President Biden said: “Even one congresswoman suggesting that I control the weather and implying that I’m sending it to red states, I mean, this stuff is off the wall. It’s like out of a comic book.”

  In his campaign against immigrants, Donald Trump continues to spew his beliefs about genetics and “bloodlines.”  In an interview on “The Hugh Hewitt Show” on Monday, Trump claimed that thousands of murderers had crossed the southern border under the Biden administration and that they have a genetic inclination to be killers.  “Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” Trump told the conservative radio talk show host. “You know, now, a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

  Now the oldest presidential candidate ever to still be in the race, Trump every day says and does things that call his acuity into question. During a 15-minute call to supporters in Maine on Monday, Trump referred to the state’s Democratic governor as a man seven times. “He wants to resettle 75,000 migrants into Maine,” he said referring to Gov. Janet Mills.

BY THE NUMBERS: Control of the US Senate looks like t’s going to flip to the Republican party as Montana Democrat Jon Tester is heading for a beating. Polling by The NY Times shows Tester trailing Republican Tim Sheehy by 17 percentage points.

  Sheehy is a wealthy businessman and former Navy SEAL who has never held public office.

  The Democrats hold the Senate with only a 51 seat majority. With Joe Manchin retiring, West Virginia is likely to go Republican and the Democrats can’t afford to lose another seat.

  The Democrats’ only hope is to get a 50-50 split, win the White House, and have Vice President Tim Walz to provide the tiebreaking vote.  

THE WAR ROOM: The White House issued no information about Israel’s plans to respond to Iran’s missile attack following a telephone conversation between President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. It’s the first time the two have spoken in two months in what has become a strained relationship.

  The White House said nothing about whether Netanyahu will heed Biden’s warning against hitting Iranian nuclear or energy sites, some of the most critical potential targets for retaliation. Already feeling left out of the loop about Israeli attacks in Lebanon, US and other world officials fear that if Israel hits those Iranian facilities it could spark a theater-wide Middle East war.

THE SPIN RACK: Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island has formally refused the demand by pro-Palestinian students to divest from companies doing business with Israel.University President Christina Paxson and Chancellor Brian Moynihan said in a joint letter that, “Brown’s mission doesn’t encompass resolving or adjudicating global conflict.” — The Tropicana Casino, the last of the Rat Pack-era entertainment and gambling establishments on the Las Vegas strip, was imploded yesterday to make way for a baseball stadium. — A mama bear named 128 Grazer is the winner of this year’s Fat Bear Week over 32 Chunk, a male bear weighing more than 1,200 pounds which killed one of Grazer’s cubs last year. The blonde Grazer received more than 70,000 out of a million votes cast compared to Chunk’s 30,000. 

BELOW THE FOLD: Speaking in Scranton, Pennsylvania yesterday, Donald Trump went on a tirade against wind-powered electricity claiming the power goes off when there’s no wind.

  “You remember when I used to say, ‘Darling, I want to watch our president tonight on television,’” he said, “And the husband looks, ‘I’m sorry, dear, the windmills aren’t wind. There’s no wind tonight, you can’t watch darling, we’re not gonna be watching tonight.’”

  It’s not true. Donald Trump will always provide plenty of wind.

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