As Trump has fiddled, the world has burned. While Northern California was engulfed in flames, President Trump inaccurately ridiculed the science of climate change while continuing to hype a manufactured immigration “crisis.”
California’s Camp Fire was contained just yesterday, 17 days after it began, after taking nearly one hundred lives and over 14,000 homes. As it burned, the scope of the real underlying climate crisis was laid bare when more than 300 of our nation’s independent scientists released a report on Friday detailing the catastrophic and inevitable impacts of climate change in a business-as-usual scenario.
The sweep of the report is terrifying, detailing the “devastating impacts of a changing climate on the economy, health and environment, including record wildfires in California.” The report shows that climate change could do more damage to the US economy by 2100 than the entire Great Recession.
In addition to policies that have systematically made the problem worse, Trump again mocked the reality of climate change on Twitter, citing cold weather as proof. His denial was castigated by countless media outlets and scientists.
While newly elected leaders across the country move to take climate action at the state and local level, Trump and his fossil fuel allies do their best to sabotage it each step of the way.
Of all the costs of Republican corruption, this may be the biggest. Our ability to live on this planet is at stake, and the GOP is the only major political party in the developed world that continues to blindly deny climate change to satisfy its base and donors.
ONE LAST SENATE RACE IS STILL IN PLAY.
Tomorrow, voters in Mississippi will take part in a referendum on hatred and racism in the Senate run-off election between former Rep. Mike Espy and racist GOP Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, whose past stances on race and the Confederacy are troubling at best.
Hyde-Smith has done her best to hide from voters, but virtually every time she has opened her mouth something disturbing has tumbled out:
- Hyde-Smith said she’d accept a “front row” invitation to a “public hanging.” If there were any doubts about the symbolism in Mississippi, nooses were found hanging outside the state capitol today.
The list goes on. Eight big corporations are asking for Hyde-Smith to refund their campaign checks and others are scrambling to distance themselves, but President Trump stands by his endorsement of the candidate, whom he calls an “outstanding person.”
Hyde-Smith’s Democratic opponent, Mike Espy, is a former representative and Agriculture Secretary. He would be the first black man elected to represent Mississippi in the US Senate since just after the Civil War.
THINKING CAP: APRIL RYAN’S TAKE.
April Ryan is hardly a rookie.
Having covered the past four presidential administrations as the White House Bureau Chief for American Urban Radio Networks, Ryan’s reporting instincts have found new resonance in the Trump era. She has been personally attacked by the president and singled out by his senior staff on a number of occasions, so @ThinkingCAPPod wanted to know: How does she keep her cool and stay focused on her work?
The veteran correspondent sat down on CAP’s podcast with Daniella and Ed to discuss how being one of the most prominent black, female White House reporters has changed under this administration; why she interviewed Steve Bannon; why she would interview David Duke; and why she’s a winner through it all.
Check out the full episode here.