@georgetakei
I wonder how the utterly pathetic self-hating "Log Cabin Republicans" will try to spin this.
#DonaldTrump #RonDeSantis #LGBTQ #homophobia #Florida #LogCabinRepublicans #MAGA

I don't know if its an artifact of cable news, cowardice, or genuine ignorance but there's a countercurrent developing in the discussion around the disgustingly-named "Alligator Alcatraz" migrant cages in the Florida Everglades and I think it's important to nip arguments that it's not *really* a "concentration camp" in the bud. So I cleaned up a post from earlier this week, threw some links in, and got into how the camp is run, the efforts Trump and DeSantis are undertaking to keep much of this a secret, and what conditions are like inside.

https://www.ninaillingworth.com/2025/07/18/recommended-reading-yes-its-a-concentration-camp/

Recommended Reading: Yes, It’s A Concentration Camp

"I think the debate over whether or not “Alligator Alcatraz” officially qualifies as a “real” concentration camp is both farcical and insulting. However you feel about longtime DNC minion Debbie Wasserman-Schultz as a politician, it is inarguable that she’s objectively describing a type of concentration camp. With dozens of brown bodies packed into small cages, inadequate access to washroom facilities and water, purposely reduced caloric counts inadequate for the preservation of healthy adults, exposure to elements and insects; what else would you call what we’re doing in the Florida swamp besides running a concentration camp? It’s not an accident Wasserman-Schultz references America’s dark history with the term “interment camps” but I think she’s still being too generous to the Trump regime here; this is a camp of cages for cruelly concentrating migrants without any concern for their wellbeing at all – a concentration camp, to be precise."

At this point, I think we're probably still a long way from identifying the full web of influence, corruption, and misappropriation of resources behind Governor Ron DeSantis' concentration camp in the Florida Everglades, the obnoxiously named "Alligator Alcatraz." As such I'm going to keep this post pretty brief; more or less to keep the issue on our radar as more information emerges.

With that caveat noted however, this Talking Points Memo article talks about the outlet's extremely nascent investigation into how DeSantis built the concentration camp, who paid for it, and who profits from it. Would it surprise you to learn that Florida's fascist governor is using a fake "emergency" to make this monstrous bullshit happen, the money trail is a hot mess, and Florida taxpayers are going to be the folks footing the bill for Ron's nazi apology to Downmarket Mussolini? Yeah, it didn't surprise me either.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/contracts-desantis-alligator-alcatraz

Contracts Show Millions of Dollars and Diverted Disaster Resources Were Used to Build DeSantis’ ‘Alligator Alcatraz’

"TPM has obtained and analyzed over a dozen contracts and invoices related to the construction and operation of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’ so-called “Alligator Alcatraz” migrant detention camp in the Everglades. The documents identify eight previously undisclosed companies — including two firms with a Fortune 500 pedigree — involved with the controversial facility. They also show that, in at least one instance, resources allocated for the state’s “disaster preparedness” apparatus were diverted to the site as DeSantis’ office used emergency powers to quickly establish the camp, causing a shortfall that needs to be addressed during the ongoing hurricane season."

I must confess that part of me feels like I'm insulting my readers' intelligence when I remind folks, over and over again, that nightmare concentration camps for migrants, many of whom are guilty of nothing more than a civil violation, would be an unacceptable eliminationist outrage even if nobody was profiteering from it and it cost the public coffers zero dollars. In the grand scheme of things the lies, corruption, and misappropriation of public funds are a side story compared to the fact that we've just opened a real as fuck concentration camp in a remote part of Florida and there are already reports of widespread human rights abuses and unsafe conditions emerging mere weeks after "Alligator Alcratraz" opened. With that having been said, informed observers must know by now that the rich nazis running the larger American fascist movement do have designs on profiting from fascist repression, ethnic cleansing, and the migrant carceral complex - and projects like Alligator Alcatraz demonstrate how that odious business functions.

If you want to know the names of the eleven companies already identified as working with the government of Florida to make this eliminationist bullshit possible, who is getting paid for what, and how many of the folks directly profiting from this are DeSantis donors (there are several) I recommend you just read the article. The short version here however is that like Trump, DeSantis has declared "an alarming number of migrants in Florida" to be a state level crisis, he then used emergency powers to divert a bunch of money, including from disaster prevention and relief funding in a state notorious for having a "hurricane season," to build a fucking concentration camp surrounded by alligators as a make up gift for his ally and former GOP nomination opponent, President Trump. Along the way a bunch of very shitty companies are raking in the money for substandard work, and the entire DeSantis administration is working overtime to keep as much of this as possible a complete secret from anyone who might be in a position to conduct any oversight on this genocidal nazi boondoggle. Think "Halliburton in post-Saddam Iraq" but on a smaller scale.