Wiretap: Floridians may know their hurricanes, but few storms are anything like Irma

It will be a while before they can assess the damage that Hurricane Irma has left in its wake, but what we do know for sure is that the storm, which hit the Florida Keys as a Category 4 before weakening as it moved up the Gulf Coast, has left an entire state shaken. Via The New York Times.

Those who witnessed Hurricane Irma describe it to The New York Times as: “A low howl.” “Tearing through the trees.” “Waiting for a monster.”

The great Dexter Filkins on how Florida’s endless romance with housing and commercial development mostly resembles a Ponzi scheme and whether Hurricane Irma is finally calling the state’s bluff. Via The New Yorker.

It’s 9/11 today. And while most of the attention must be on Hurricane Irma and its devasting trip through Florida, we remember to offer two 9/11 stories. In the first, The Los Angeles Times reports on the first monument dedicated to those responders and workers whose deaths were linked to breathing the toxic air at Ground Zero. The second is an Esquire story by Tom Junod published two years ago called “The Falling Man.” It’s about the search — and whether there should have been a search — for the identify of the jumper in the iconic AP photo.

The New York Times does Amazon a big favor by picking the location for its new co-headquarters. Spoiler alert: They chose Denver.

If you wondered about the kind of advice Donald Trump was actually getting from Steve Bannon, all you had to do was tune in to 60 Minutes Sunday to watch the former White House senior adviser declaring war on Mitch McConnell, Paul Ryan and the rest of the Republican Congress. And that’s not all. Via The Washington Post.

Jonah Goldberg writes in The National Review that Trump’s defenders are brilliant in the way they manage to find meaning in every Trumpian move. The problem is that they seem to miss the essential point — when it comes to Trump, there is no plan.

Doyle McManus: Hilary Clinton’s book proves, if nothing else, that she still doesn’t understand what hit her in 2016 and why writing this book can’t help her find out. Via The Los Angeles Times.

You know that claim of 5,000 illegal voters in New Hampshire made by Kris Kobach and the so-called “voter integrity” panel? Turns out, as you might have guessed, it’s completely bogus. The claim depends upon a misreading, willful or otherwise, of New Hampshire voting law. Via Vox.

U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 2nd Class Nathan Wilkes, via Flickr: Creative Commons