Thursday, July 3: Climate change comes for the concentration camp

The news, in brief …

• Paramount settles with Trump for $16 million

  At least one Democratic senator accused the studio of “paying a bribe” to clear the way for a planned merger. Read more.

• Bryan Kohberger pleads guilty to four murders

  Kohberger accepted a plea deal that had him admit guilt for all five counts he faced from the 2022 murders of four Idaho students. Read more.

• Sean “Diddy” Combs found guilty in split verdict

  The music mogul avoided the most serious charges against him, but could still face up to 20 years in prison. Read more.

• Trump halts nearly $7 billion in federal funding for schools

  The funds, which were appropriated by Congress and approved by Trump, were meant to fund after-school and summer school programs. Read more.

Make me smarter …

As the One Big Boondoggle passes the Senate, Trump and Musk square off again

The issues involved are serious. But oh, the drama these boys bring to the office. Read more.

Two tiny and trunkless Cuban heel boots, stand in the swamp…

If you’re looking for a metaphor about conservative myopia defeating itself, you could do a lot worse than the fact that “Alligator Alcatraz” has already flooded.

The detention facility-cum-concentration camp is the brainchild of a former foe of Donald Trump, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. You got the feeling in their earlier altercations that the only thing keeping Trump from spitting in DeSantis’ face was Trump’s unwillingness to bend at the waist to do it. Still, this redneck Renfield eagerly escorted Trump through a series of slapdash tents tossed onto a tarmac in the Everglades earlier this week, touting Florida’s commitment to Trump’s nationwide theater of cruelty.

DeSantis’ home state is one of several canaries in the climate coal mine, where cities that aren’t sinking into the ocean can expect to weather ever more intense and frequent hurricanes or fall into unpredictable sinkholes as the drinking water dries up. Rather than face this reality, DeSantis has opted to ban any official use of the word “climate change” and spends the state’s money on anti-migrant photo ops and the inevitable lawsuits that follow.

Nature has proven time and time again that it’s allergic to personification, but the rainstorms that quickly flooded DeSantis’ remote jail do make you wonder about an atmospheric sense of humor.

Videos from the facility showed the state flag of Florida and the star-spangled banner standing in rapidly encroaching water following a regular afternoon thunderstorm. In the short term, the flooding is a reminder that real people will be forced to deal with intolerable conditions so that the nation’s least contacted grandparents can feel smug. In the long term, it’s proof that the works of people like DeSantis and Trump are as impermanent as they are pathetic.

What do you think? How much longer will we have to look on the works of Republicans and despair? Do you see a future with an actual opposition? Is a time coming where we won’t have to hope GOP’s plans self-destruct? Sound off in the comments.

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Before you go …

“Special treatment”: How Republicans bought Lisa Murkowski’s vote

The GOP budget passed by the Senate on Tuesday is filled with special carve-outs for Alaska. Read more.