By Jordain Carney @ TheHill.com, Sept. 11

Top Senate Republicans are firing back at Stephen Bannon amid reports that he is eyeing primary challenges to GOP incumbents who he believes haven't been supportive of President Trump, calling on both the president and his ousted adviser to leave elected Republicans alone. 

"I wish they would focus on Democrats instead of Republicans," Sen. John Cornyn (Texas), the No. 2 Senate Republican, told reporters when asked about Bannon.

Sen. John Thune (S.D.), the No. 3 Senate Republican, added that the potential primary threats could make it harder for Republicans to hold onto their thin 52-seat majority despite a favorable 2018 map. 

"It does [make it harder]. And it's not particularly productive. ...We ought to stay focused on the task at hand," he told reporters. 

Sources told CNN and Politico that Bannon and his allies are actively preparing for Republican primary challenges to several sitting senators, including Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) [....]

By Nicole Hensley @ NYDailyNews,

Sen. Ted Cruz has been busy on Twitter.

The Texas lawmaker was one of more than 400 accounts that liked a two-minute-long porno from @SexuallPosts on the social media site.

Lewd footage of the actors — two women and a man — appeared on Cruz’s feed of liked tweets for no particular reason early Tuesday.

It’s unclear when the married father of two personally liked the tweet or if a staffer using his account did the deed [....]

By William D. Cohan @ News Desk @ NewYorker.com, Sept. 9

Donald Trump is now irrelevant to corporate America. That is the unequivocal message coming from some C.E.O.s, and the Wall Street bankers who work most closely with them. The new strategy by corporate executives to get the policies they once hoped Trump would deliver to them—tax reform, the repatriation of corporate profits, regulatory relief, and a comprehensive infrastructure plan—is to forget about Trump altogether and to work directly with congressional leaders to craft bipartisan legislation that Trump will have no choice but to sign. These C.E.O.s and bankers say they are focussing their attention almost exclusively on working with Mitch McConnell, the Senate Majority Leader, and Paul Ryan, the Speaker of the House, who both have had their differences with Trump of late [....]

Many cited Trump’s defense of white supremacists in Charlottesville as a breaking point in a steadily fraying relationship. That sense intensified with the Trump Administration’s announcement, this week, that it would end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) [....]

By Anthony Faiola @ WashingtonPost.com, Sept. 10

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The storm-stricken Caribbean took on the feel of a sprawling disaster zone Sunday, with Cuban first responders using inflatable rafts to navigate flooded streets as panicked families sent up social-media pleas in search of loved ones on hard-hit islands further east.

In St. John in the U.S. Virgin Islands, “people there are roaming like zombies,” said Stacey Alvarado, a bar owner who managed to leave for the mainland. Her husband, who is still there, told her Sunday that residents and tourists are in shock. “They don’t know what to do. The island was wiped out. It’s like the walking dead down there.”

In Cuba, where the government said it had evacuated 1 million residents [....]

Analysis with charts by Reuben Fischer-Baum, Neil Greenberg & Mike Hume @ WashingtonPost.com, Sept. 7

[....] As the 2017 season begins, Kaepernick is still unemployed – and still the topic of contentious debate.

But what if we looked just at the numbers?

Having a capable starter under center in the NFL is a requirement for success, and one of the best measurements is found through adjusted net yards per attempt (ANY/A), which correlates more closely with winning than either traditional passer rating or yards per attempt.

To see objectively where Kaepernick slots on a scale of current NFL QBs, we plotted every (qualified) quarterback’s three-year season average in the statistic.

Among qualified quarterbacks, 4 are worse than Colin Kaepernick, 2 are about the same (plus or minus 0.35 ANY/A) and 26 are better [....]

My wife has been making cold-brewed coffee lately. At first I, a confirmed Mr. Coffee drip coffee lover, was skeptical. But it didn't take long for me to become a convert. To riff off a previous Facebook discussion on the merits of whisky and whiskey, the cold-brewed coffee (which I heat before drinking), is the scotch to the drip coffee's bourbon. Starting with the same whole beans, the cold-brew comes out with a slightly more refined complex flavor. The drip is slightly stronger and bolder. Both are great.

Make Hurricanes Great Again - they can Dream too.

The canonization of the press, helped by a power climber trying for Hoover's slot. You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours...

Not formed enough to be an idea, just an ill-intention.