Item One, ya’ll folks in Florida, stay safe.

Item Two, there is more speculation about why Nikki Haley announced she is leaving the UN:

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley reportedly announced her departure on Tuesday — even though she’s leaving at the end of the year — because she wanted to avoid appearing as though she were leaving the Trump administration in response to potential negative outcomes of the midterm elections or any other negative news, Politico reported.

According to two people familiar with the matter, Haley also was trying to avoid the appearance that the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe had anything to do with her departure.

While Haley’s official story is that her exit is fueled by her passion for term limits, her allies say Haley felt she couldn’t move up any further in the Trump administration and she decided to “bow out,” in Politico’s words.

There are hopes among the remaining Never-Trump Republicans that she’ll challenge Trump in 2020. Trump, for his part, is said to have been “annoyed” by her popularity and political ambitions, which means that if he weren’t such a sodden mass of Stupid he’d have offered her bigger jobs.

Item Three, There are new indicators that the post-Kavanaugh backlash is helping Demicrats and hurting Republicans, which is not what Mitch McConnell expected. See Philip Bump, “This Is Not What a Pro-Kavanaugh Electoral Backlash Looks Like.” See also “Dems Gain On Generic Ballot In Post-Kavanaugh CNN Poll, Contradicting Other Surveys” and “Poll: Kavanaugh confirmation energizes Democrats more than GOP.”

Item Four, My dad was born 100 years ago today. This photo was taken about 1944, when he was about 25.