2021-06-27 | ANONYMOUS

What if the truth isn’t out there?

The US military’s official report on <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463659/ufo-videos-navy-alien-drone">UFOs</a> is here, and its conclusion is scintillating: There’s some stuff in the sky, the government isn’t sure what it is, there’s no evidence that it’s aliens, but also no one’s ruling out aliens. So in conclusion, the UFOs are part of life’s rich pageant and anything is possible.
The nine-page report released by the Director of National Intelligence’s (DNI) office last week, formally titled <a href="https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/Prelimary-Assessment-UAP-20210625.pdf">“Preliminary Assessment: Unidentified Aerial Phenomena,”</a> says a little bit more than “we know nothing.” But that is the main takeaway. “Limited Data Leaves Most UAP Unexplained” reads the report’s first subject heading.
That takeaway comes as something of an anticlimax capping off a period of frenzied speculation over UAPs (the new preferred term for “UFO”). The current mania was kicked off by a <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html">2017 New York Times A1 article</a> revealing the existence of a quiet Pentagon program analyzing strange aerial sightings by pilots. Since then, a steady stream of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22463659/ufo-videos-navy-alien-drone">mainstream news coverage and Pentagon disclosures</a> have kept UAPs in the public eye, complete with details about their allegedly fantastical, above-human capabilities.
In the immediate wake of the DNI report, <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-unexplained-phenomena-of-the-ufo-report">no minds have been changed</a>. The skeptics are still skeptical. Believers in the “extraterrestrial hypothesis” (ETH) still believe.
Which is about right. This report simply doesn’t contain enough new information to move anyone’s assessments much in one direction or another. It was mostly meant to summarize the UFO sightings the Pentagon has looked at, rather than explain those sightings. It was reportedly <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/the-unexplained-phenomena-of-the-ufo-report">written in half a year by two people working part-time</a>; it is not a large-scale evidence review like the 9/11 Report.
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<figcaption>A still from the GOFAST UFO video.</figcaption>
<cite><a class="ql-link" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6rWOtrke0HY" target="_blank">Official UAP Footage from the USG</a></cite></figure>
So the UFO-curious public is left more or less where it started before this latest round of UFO stories: not knowing what these objects in the sky are or where they’re from or what if anything they tell us about the universe.
Let me lay my cards on the table here: I’ve long been on the skeptics’ side. I don’t think we have any evidence that these UAPs are a sign of intelligent life on a different planet. But I also know that it’s a question we have to get to the bottom of, and to do that the government needs to allocate a bit more in the way of research funding.
We have to get to the bottom of this question because the truth about UFOs — particularly if the extraterrestrial hypothesis happens to be somehow true — could clarify humans’ role in the universe.
Physicists, astronomers, philosophers, and other smart people have been trying to suss out what the existence or nonexistence of intelligent life elsewhere in the universe could mean. It could be we’re all alone in the universe, which leads to certain mind-breaking implications — one of which is perhaps humanity has a moral duty to preserve civilization because it exists nowhere else in the vast expanse of space. Or it could be that we do have cosmic neighbors, but that those neighbors haven’t reached out because they face difficult challenges — challenges that could be waiting for us in our own future and that could inform how we act today.
In other words, the UFO question is a subquestion of a much broader, more profound inquiry into the future of humanity.
A finding that UFOs represent an alien civilization visiting Earth would be crucially important, first and foremost because it would answer a question scientists have been asking for at least the last century: Where is everybody?
The universe is almost incomprehensibly vast: In the Milky Way galaxy alone, there are <a href="https://www.space.com/25959-how-many-stars-are-in-the-milky-way.html">hundreds of billions of stars</a>, and <a href="https://science.ubc.ca/news/many-six-billion-earth-planets-our-galaxy-according-new-estimates">as many as 6 billion</a> of them could be Sun-like stars with rocky Earth-like planets orbiting them. There are <a href="https://phys.org/news/2017-01-universe-trillion-galaxies.html">hundreds of billions if not trillions of galaxies</a> alongside the Milky Way.
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<figcaption>The summer Milky Way from the Howse Pass Viewpoint at Saskatchewan River Crossing in Banff National Park, Alberta.</figcaption>
<cite>Alan Dyer/VW PICS/Universal Images Group via Getty Images</cite></figure>
It would be strange for humans to be the only intelligent life (or, at least, the only life of above-chimpanzee intelligence) in all that vastness. And, intuitively, it seems like some of our peers should have surpassed us and developed the ability to send probes thousands of light-years away to observe us.
This puzzle is commonly known as Fermi’s paradox, after its articulation by the 20th-century physicist Enrico Fermi, and it has fascinated astronomers, physicists, and science fiction fans for decades. As <a href="https://www.vox.com/science-and-health/2018/7/3/17522810/aliens-fermi-paradox-drake-equation">Liv Boeree explained for Vox</a>, much of the literature on the Fermi paradox relies on a model known as the Drake equation, devised by physicist Frank Drake to estimate the number of “active, communicative, extra-terrestrial civilizations” in our galaxy.
The equation includes some variables astronomers are able to estimate (like the rate of star formation in the Milky Way and the fraction of stars with planets) and some inherently speculative ones, like the fraction of planets that develop intelligent life. The Drake equation is thus quite imprecise, and it requires plugging in numbers where researchers have tremendous uncertainty.
In 2017, Anders Sandberg, Eric Drexler, and Toby Ord of the Future of Humanity Institute <a href="https://arxiv.org/pdf/1806.02404.pdf">attempted rough estimates</a> of the odds that human civilization is alone in the galaxy and universe by giving uniform odds to a number of different parameters. For instance, they estimated that the share of planets with life that also have intelligent life could be anywhere from 0.1 percent to 100 percent, and gave equal odds to every number in that range.
They then incorporated the fact that we haven’t observed other intelligent civilizations, which should lower our estimated odds of their existence. The paper concluded that there’s a 53 percent to 99.6 percent chance of humans being the only intelligent civilization in the Milky Way, and a 39 percent to 85 percent chance of being alone in the observable universe.
The optimistic read, as <a href="https://80000hours.org/podcast/episodes/anders-sandberg-fermi-paradox/">outlined by Sandberg elsewhere</a>, is that this finding should reduce our fear that humans face a huge extinction event in our future.
How does that follow? Well, one common explanation for humans’ apparent loneliness in the universe is that intelligent life is actually incredibly common — but almost always destroys itself at some point. Either a civilization’s own technology grows so advanced and dangerous that it wipes itself out, or natural phenomena like meteors or supervolcanoes strike before the civilization has the chance to send probes to look at us.
This theory is known as the <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20100507074729/http://hanson.gmu.edu/greatfilter.html">Great Filter</a>, and it has a certain terrifying plausibility to it. Humanity has already developed tools capable of wiping itself out, or else shrinking itself to a size so small that it cannot endure and sustain itself: nuclear weapons, engineered pathogens, possibly greenhouse gas emissions.
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<aside><q>There is a part of me that wants the objects in the sky to be aliens because the alternative is so dismal.</q></aside>
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Oxford’s Ord, in last year’s book <a href="https://smile.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Humanity/dp/0316484911?sa-no-redirect=1" has-subtag="true" data-cdata='{"rewritten_url":"https://smile.amazon.com/Precipice-Existential-Risk-Future-Humanity/dp/0316484911?sa-no-redirect=1\u0026ascsubtag=[]vx[p]22320124[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]d-placeholder","subtag_max_length":99,"subtag_delim_length":2,"subtag_key":"ascsubtag","subtag_data":{"sa-no-redirect":"1","ascsubtag":"[]vx[p]22320124[m]m-placeholder[s]s-placeholder[t]w[c]c-placeholder[r]r-placeholder[d]d-placeholder"},"encode_subtag":false}'>The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity</a>, roughly estimates the odds of a human-caused extinction or extinction-level event in the next century at about one in six.
There’s a <a href="https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/Z5KZ2cui8WDjyF6gJ/some-thoughts-on-toby-ord-s-existential-risk-estimates">lot of uncertainty</a> around those estimates. But one in six is a very significant risk. Most election forecasters gave <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jsvine/2016-election-forecast-grades">lower odds to a Donald Trump victory</a> in 2016.
And if our loneliness in the universe is evidence that every other civilization has destroyed itself in a fashion like this, then one in six might be an overly optimistic estimate. If, on the other hand, the difficult-to-pass “filter” is in our past (say, at the stage in which lifeless molecules combined to create viruses and bacteria), as the Sandberg/Drexler/Ord research suggests, then our loneliness need not imply a grave threat in our future.
Researchers interested in the potential risk posed by the Great Filter tend to focus on <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2154">searching for “biosignatures” or “technosignatures”</a>: observable attributes of planets elsewhere in the galaxy that might give evidence of life or human-level technology.
Generally, the hope is to not find these signatures. If we see evidence that there are lots of planets with life up to or equal to human levels of sophistication, but not at levels of sophistication that exceed humans, that strengthens the argument that the filter is in the future, that humans will (like all technologically advanced civilizations) find a way to destroy ourselves.
“If the search for biosignatures reveals that life is everywhere while technology is not, then our challenge is even greater to secure a sustainable future,” researchers Jacob Haqq-Misra, Ravi Kumar Kopparapu, and Edward Schwieterman recently concluded in an <a href="https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/ast.2019.2154">article for the journal Astrobiology</a>.
If (and I must stress that this is a quite unlikely “if”) UFO sightings on earth are actually evidence that an advanced alien civilization has developed a system of long-distance probes that it is using to monitor or contact humanity, then that would be an immensely hopeful sign in Great FIlter terms.
It would mean that at least one civilization has far surpassed humanity without encountering any insurmountable hurdles preventing its survival. It would also mean Earth need not be the universe’s sole protector of intelligent life and civilization, meaning that if we do destroy ourselves, all is not lost, cosmically speaking.
Getting to the bottom of the UAPs and investigating whether there’s intelligent life elsewhere is important, and it’s probably worth devoting government resources toward solving the mystery.
But I also worry that belief in the extraterrestrial hypothesis is a kind of wishful thinking. If it’s wrong, and a Great Filter is in our future, that suggests our species is in immense danger. It would mean there are many, perhaps millions or billions, of civilizations like ours around the universe, but that they without fail destroy themselves at some point after they reach a certain level of technological sophistication. If that happened to them, it’ll almost certainly happen to us too.
<div class="c-wide-block">
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<figcaption>Cihan Onen of Bitlis Eren University takes photos of the Milky Way, in Turkey on September 22, 2020.</figcaption>
<cite>Ahmet Okur/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images</cite></figure>
</div>
If the extraterrestrial hypothesis is wrong simply because we’re the only species that has even gotten this far, that’s alarming for a different reason. It implies that if we screw up, that’s it: The universe would be left as a desolate compilation of stars and planets without any thinking creatures on them. Nothing capable of empathizing or acting morally would exist anymore.
Skeptic though I am, there is a part of me that wants the objects in the sky to be aliens because the alternative is so dismal. I want to know what these objects really are because the stakes are high enough that we need to get this right. But in a way, our current state of relative ignorance can be a bit of a silver lining — there’s comfort in the thought that we don’t know the answer yet, and that we can’t quite close the door on the possibility of life beyond Earth.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22556083/ufo-uap-report-fermi-paradox-aliens">https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22556083/ufo-uap-report-fermi-paradox-aliens</a>

vox What if the truth isn’t out there?

The US military’s official report on UFOs is here, and its conclusion is scintillating: There’s some stuff in the sky, the government isn’t...

Movies like Summer of Soul can reclaim America’s important buried history

Two summers ago, I <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/8/13/20758555/woodstock-50-anniversary-summer-of-love-documentary-generation">wrote about Woodstock</a>. 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the famous (perhaps infamous) music festival, and a ripe time to evaluate its legacy as captured in a landmark concert documentary. After all, it’s iconic; if you mention the place, people think of semi-naked hippies in a field and Jimi Hendrix absolutely shredding “The Star-Spangled Banner.”
But I was writing about the 50th anniversary of Woodstock before Summer of Soul (... Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) came out. In hindsight, after watching this absolutely spectacular barnburner of a concert documentary, I’m sad we weren’t talking about Harlem ’69 alongside Woodstock ’69.
Sad, but not particularly surprised it wasn’t on our collective radar.
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<figcaption>The 5th Dimension performing at the Harlem Cultural Festival.</figcaption>
<cite>Searchlight Pictures</cite></figure>
Hopefully, you don’t need much convincing to watch Summer of Soul (and you have two options, on Hulu or, better, in a theater). Ahmir Thompson, a.k.a. Questlove, directed the film, which is mostly a concert documentary comprised of astounding, never-before-seen footage.
In 1969, following a tumultuous year in America generally and New York City specifically, the city announced a series of concerts to take place over six weekends in Mount Morris Park (now Marcus Garvey Park), nestled into the heart of Manhattan’s Harlem neighborhood at the epicenter of Black cultural life. About 300,000 people attended in total (Woodstock, 100 miles to the north, attracted around 400,000). They called the event the Harlem Cultural Festival. The coffee brand Maxwell House was the sponsor. Jesse Jackson and Mayor John Lindsay showed up.
The main attraction was the music. And what a lineup! Nina Simone. B.B. King. Gladys Knight and the Pips. Mahalia Jackson. Pops Staples and the Staples Sisters, one of whom was named Mavis. The 5th Dimension. Herbie Mann. The Edwin Hawkins Singers. Mongo Santamaria. Moms Mabley. Max Roach. Stevie Wonder. Sly and the Family Stone, for whose performance the NYPD refused to provide security, so the Black Panthers did instead. There was Motown and gospel, soul and funk. And that’s just scratching the surface.
The entire series of concerts was filmed by a crew (just like Woodstock), with director and producer Al Tulchin at the helm. But in Summer of Soul, Tulchin explains that he tried to sell the footage for broadcast afterward, billing it as “Black Woodstock” to explain what the event had been, and found no takers. “Nobody cared about Harlem,” he says.
It’s not as if the concert featured obscure acts that drew no interest outside of Harlem, or even outside Black communities. They were driving American music and topping the charts. That didn’t matter to decision-makers. And so, the footage more or less sat in a can in someone’s basement for 50 years. Then, in recent years, producer Robert Fyvolent found out about it and bought the rights from Tulchin. Now, we have Summer of Soul.
Every moment is a surprise. After a while, you’ll find yourself sitting with mouth agape, waiting to see which incredible cultural icon will walk out onto the stage next. The footage is kinetic and vivid, shot from angles that emphasize how the crowd is responding to each performance, pulling in close to faces dripping with sweat and emotion, and sometimes shooting from the stage, through gaps between instruments, to reveal faces thrilled with the show.
I’ll never recover from watching Mahalia Jackson and Mavis Staples sing “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” on the same mic, so close we can see their individual teeth. It’s a song Jackson had performed alongside Martin Luther King Jr. many times before; King had been murdered a year before the concerts.
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<figcaption>Mavis Staples and Mahalia Jackson in Summer of Soul.</figcaption>
<cite>Searchlight Pictures</cite></figure>
“Gospel was more than religious,” Al Sharpton explains. “Gospel was the therapy for the stress and pressure of being Black in America. We didn’t know anything about therapists, but we knew Mahalia Jackson.”
Thompson, realizing that the significance of the event to the Black community of the historical moment could use contemporary reinforcement, brings in commentators — mostly people who were there more than 50 years ago — to talk about what it meant to see a crowd full of Black faces celebrating. Or to have the concerts occur in a moment of revolution, of crystallizing Black identity. “By the fashion in the crowd, you could see the change happening,” one commentator says.
A generational shift was taking place among Black Americans, and it mattered that the concerts occurred while debates raged within Harlem itself about nonviolence and militance, about expanding consciousness to encompass a whole range of cultures who’d been shut out by mainstream white America.
In one sequence, Thompson weaves together a poignant exploration of the moon landing, which occurred in the midst of the festival’s run, and what the people gathered in Mount Morris Park were thinking during that “giant leap for mankind.” Archival footage reveals people significantly less convinced that landing on the moon was worth spending money that could have been used to relieve poverty and hunger down here on earth. In a manner that recounts a documentary like 2016’s <a href="https://www.vox.com/2016/6/11/11895826/oj-made-in-america-espn-oj-simpson">O.J.: Made in America</a>, Summer of Soul deftly weaves the mood of the time and the long history of Black expression through music into this one moment, and it practically explodes off the screen.
That we’ve been talking about Woodstock and not the Harlem Cultural Festival all this time as if it’s the moment in which a generation emerged is not all that surprising. “The so-called powers that are, or were, didn’t find it significant enough to keep it as a part of history,” one participant in the film notes. It wasn’t like the festival’s essential erasure from cultural memory was an anomaly; Black history gets memory-holed all the time. It doesn’t happen by accident. Powerful people make choices about what they think is worth preserving in the cultural memory, and what’s just fine to forget.
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<figcaption>Gladys Knight and the Pips in Summer of Soul.</figcaption>
<cite>Searchlight Pictures</cite></figure>
That’s why a movie like Summer of Soul matters. It’s not just a blast to watch — and it truly is a blast. It’s another tiny step in reclaiming the full history of America, expanding the context of our present not just for people who remember the past, but people who never knew about it in the first place. We’re fools if we don’t think burying the era-changing import of events like these is as much a part of American history as the events themselves — and movies like Summer of Soul fight back bringing the past vibrantly to life.
At the beginning of the film, Musa Jackson, who attended the festival as a kid, sits down to be interviewed about the experience. Off-camera, Thompson tells him that he’s going to start playing footage so Jackson can see it as he answers questions. But as soon as the light of the screen falls on his face, Jackson is transfixed, unable to answer questions, his eyes starting to grow wet. At the end of the film, he says that watching the footage moved something within him that always kind of doubted that his memory of the festival was real. Crying, he says, “I knew I was not crazy. But now I know I’m not. And this is just confirmation.”
Then he smiles. “And not only that,” Jackson says. “But how beautiful it was.”
Summer of Soul (... Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised) is playing in theaters and streaming on Hulu.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22559380/summer-of-soul-review-harlem-black-woodstock-historical-memory">https://www.vox.com/22559380/summer-of-soul-review-harlem-black-woodstock-historical-memory</a>

vox Movies like Summer of Soul can reclaim America’s important buried history

Two summers ago, I wrote about Woodstock . 2019 marked the 50th anniversary of the famous (perhaps infamous) music festival, and a ripe time...

The US power grid isn’t ready for climate change

In Portland, Oregon, this week, the recorded official temperature <a href="https://www.vox.com/22557563/how-to-redesign-cities-for-heat-waves-climate-change">reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit</a>, power <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/oregons-buckled-roads-melted-cables-warning-signs/">cables for the city’s streetcars melted</a>, sagging overhead wires forced the <a href="https://news.trimet.org/2021/06/trimet-immediately-suspends-all-max-service-until-tuesday-june-29-due-to-record-setting-temperatures/">light rail to shut down</a>, and more than <a href="https://www.oregonlive.com/weather/2021/06/over-5000-pge-customers-lose-power-amid-record-heat-wave.html">6,000 people lost electricity</a>.
But it’s far from the first time extreme weather has caused serious problems with the power grid in recent months. During the winter storm that hit Texas in February, <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2021-02-15/winter-s-fury-unleashes-brutal-cold-over-u-s-with-more-to-come">nearly 5 million</a> <a href="https://www.vox.com/2021/2/16/22284140/texas-blackout-outage-winter-storm-uri-ercot-power-grid-cold-snow-austin-houston-dallas">people lost power</a>. In June, California <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/06/25/california-didnt-require-electric-car-owners-stop-charging/5320286001/">suggested</a> that residents charge their electric vehicles during off-peak hours to save energy. And for the first time ever, after power outages hit several neighborhoods during this week’s heat wave, New York City officials sent residents <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/30/nyregion/nyc-energy-alert-heatwave.html">an emergency mobile alert</a> urging them to conserve energy.
It’s abundantly clear that the power grid in the United States is not ready for the effects of climate change, including the <a href="https://www.vox.com/22287295/texas-uri-climate-change-cold-polar-vortex-arctic">extreme weather events</a> that <a href="https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/weather-climate">come with it</a>. After all, climate change isn’t just increasing the demand for energy to keep people cool or warm amid heat waves and winter storms. It’s also damaging the grid itself. The country is now in a race against time to shift its energy supply toward renewable sources, like wind and solar, while also needing more and more electricity to do everything from powering more air conditioning to boosting the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/29/climate/gm-electric-cars-power-grid.html">number of EVs on the road</a>.
“I would probably give our power grid maybe a C minus,” <a href="https://www.colorado.edu/ceae/kyri-baker">Kyri Baker</a>, an engineering professor at the University of Colorado Boulder, told Recode. “It’s like this perfect storm of extreme temperatures, more electricity consumption, and aging infrastructure.”
Having a reliable power grid can be a matter of life and death. In the most severe power outages during the winter storm in Texas this past February, 700 people are estimated to have died, according to <a href="https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/peteraldhous/texas-winter-storm-power-outage-death-toll">BuzzFeed</a>. <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/01/weather/pacific-northwest-extreme-heat-thursday/index.html">Hundreds of people died</a> during this past week’s heat wave in the Pacific Northwest and Canada. Meanwhile, the effects of heat waves have been <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jul/28/us-racial-injustices-will-worsen-climate-crisis-escalates">disproportionately</a> worse for historically marginalized brown, Black, and Indigenous communities. People who are elderly, very young, who have certain medication conditions, or who work outdoors <a href="https://www.vox.com/22538401/heat-wave-record-temperature-extreme-climate-change-drought">are also more likely</a> to feel the impacts of extreme heat.
Climate change means that extreme weather events are becoming more <a href="https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/weather-climate#:~:text=Scientific%20studies%20indicate%20that%20extreme,storms%2C%20floods%2C%20and%20droughts.">intense and common</a>, which is worrisome not just because the power grid is aging. The grid is woefully unprepared for an imminent and disturbing future.
Last year, <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/natural-gas/use-of-natural-gas.php">about 40 percent of the country’s electricity generation</a> came from natural gas. While the grid still relies on a good amount of <a href="https://www.eia.gov/energyexplained/electricity/electricity-in-the-us.php">coal-based power</a>, a growing share of power is coming from renewable sources, like solar and wind power, which will hopefully make the grid more sustainable. But while some of these sources are a lot worse for the environment than others, they all contribute electricity to the grid, a giant engineering system full of high- and low-voltage wires, sensors, poles, and transformers that work together to transport electricity to your home.
Electricity travels across the grid, moving from high-voltage lines that carry the electricity across long distances to low-voltage lines, a process known as “<a href="https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/how-does-us-power-grid-work">stepping down</a>.” The low-voltage lines distribute that electricity to buildings and then individual appliances and electronics. But there are hurdles. Right now, the country is still facing problems with the <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/29/power-grid-problems/">congestion of transmission lines</a> that have maxed out on the amount of electricity they can carry. In Vermont, solar and wind energy have stalled because <a href="https://www.vpr.org/vpr-news/2020-12-15/transmission-grid-bottlenecks-in-northeast-kingdom-stall-solar-development#stream/0">the grid is already too constrained</a>.
“So it’s not like you can just set up a wire from point A to point B and everything will be fine,” Sam Gomberg, a senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists, explained. “You need to set up little steps along the way to guide that electricity in the direction that you want it to go so that it ultimately ends up at your home.”
The US power grid is actually made up of several regional grids, or interconnections, that are tied together and operate on a synchronized frequency of 60 hertz. While these systems are very large, oversight of the grid is somewhat patchwork. Generating power for the grid are more than <a href="https://www.eia.gov/tools/faqs/faq.php?id=65&t=2">10,000 power plants in the country</a>. But the grid itself, including transmission and distribution systems, is operated by a mix of state-owned and private entities, including some public-private collaborations. Then, local utility companies like Con Edison in New York City and PG&E in San Francisco ultimately deliver electricity to peoples’ homes.
“The unique thing about the power system versus any other type of infrastructure is that it’s almost instantaneous,” Baker, of UC Boulder, told Recode. “So if I turn on a light in my house, there is an instantaneous mismatch in supply and demand. And the power plants actually respond almost in real time to that increase in demand.”
At the same time, that means not being hooked up with a broader system can cause problems. Texas, for instance, has opted to <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zcrsgdl_hP0">operate its own electric grid</a>, which is largely independent from other regional power systems. While this has given the state more autonomy, some have argued that Texas could have avoided such devastating outages this past winter if the state’s grid had been able to draw from other power sources. Notably, nearby Oklahoma was able to turn to other states to keep its power on during the same storm.
Summer heat can interfere with the US power supply in many ways.
Hot weather can drive up energy demands, often to power air conditioners, which can overload the electric grid and cause brownouts — partial outages that reduce the overall power available. At the same time, high temperatures <a href="https://www.vox.com/22308149/texas-blackout-power-outage-winter-uri-grid-ercot">can make power plants less effective</a>, limit the amount of energy power lines can carry, and make failures more likely in transformers, which help control the voltage throughout the power grid.
That’s why, during the summer months, you might receive an alert telling you to cut back on electricity usage, like delaying vacuuming until the evening. If the problem gets bad enough, utilities might even use rolling blackouts — when a utility company temporarily shuts down electrical power for different areas in order to avoid overloading the entire system — in order to protect the grid. Of course, while officials might deem these steps necessary, rolling blackouts can be inconvenient and even risky for residents who need power to stay cool during heat waves. This past week, New York’s power company Con Edison <a href="https://abc7ny.com/power-outages-nyc-con-ed-outage-edison/10846373/">distributed dry ice</a> to some residents of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, who were left without air conditioning during a power outage.
The heat can cause problems for the electric grid beyond overcapacity. If the weather gets hot enough, power lines start to sag — a result of the metal inside them expanding — and risk striking a tree and starting a fire. At the same time, power plants are highly dependent on water, which they need to cool down their systems. This means that as hot and dry weather drives up demand for air conditioning, the increased need for energy is also driving up the power grid’s demand for water, which is often in short supply during periods of drought. Cooling systems <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/science/environment/heat-wave-drought-strain-us-power-grid-rcna1315">need electricity, too</a>, adding even more demand for energy.
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<figcaption>Heat can do damage to power lines and make them less effective.</figcaption>
<cite>Frederic J. Brown/AFP via Getty Images</cite></figure>
“We’re trying to project the weather two years from now or five years from now, and climate change is making it more difficult,” Anjan Bose, <a href="https://school.eecs.wsu.edu/bose-biography/">an electrical engineering professor</a> at Washington State University, told Recode. “If you can’t project the weather, you can’t project the load demand.”
Eventually, individual energy users become aware of these problems. This summer, California’s state power grid operator <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/california-warned-brace-another-summer-energy-blackouts-n1268879">warned that people</a> should prepare for temporary power outages. Last week, Portland had to shut down streetcar service. And in areas where there’s a high wildfire risk, utility companies <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/pg-e-warns-of-more-blackouts-during-californias-wildfire-season-11623414658">might order rolling blackouts</a> to lessen the risk of an overloaded grid causing additional fires.
Fixing the power grid can’t be done in one fell swoop. Instead, the grid will need to be updated by transitioning to cleaner energy sources like wind and solar, adapting grid and energy storage infrastructure to adjust to these new types of power, and changing our approach to energy consumption in general.
The system also needs to predict and respond to changes in energy demand. One part of the solution is smart grid technologies, which <a href="https://www.energy.gov/oe/activities/technology-development/grid-modernization-and-smart-grid">use internet-connected sensors</a> on various parts of the grid to collect a lot more detailed data about how well those parts are working. That real-time data can also help utility companies quickly resolve potential problems before they become widespread. The Biden administration <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/04/27/fact-sheet-biden-administration-advances-expansion-modernization-of-the-electric-grid/">supports deploying</a> this tech, which could be key to making power grids more resilient.
In April, the White House also <a href="https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/biden-releases-money-in-push-to-modernize-u-s-electric-grid">freed up $8 billion</a> in order to boost the grid’s capacity to support renewable energy, and committed to making it easier for new, renewables-focused transmission lines to be approved. Joe Biden is now pushing to modernize the grid as part of <a href="https://www.vox.com/22553888/joe-biden-infrastructure-deal-bipartisanship-democrats-republicans">his massive infrastructure plan</a>. Through that plan, the president is hoping that the government <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/06/24/fact-sheet-president-biden-announces-support-for-the-bipartisan-infrastructure-framework/">will be able to spend at least $73 billion on improvements</a>, including building thousands of miles of new transmission lines to expand renewable energy. This will be key to making renewables more feasible. As Vox’s Umair Irfan and Rebecca Leber explain:
<blockquote>
Transmission lines can link areas that need energy with places where wind and solar power are cheap, which can be separated by thousands of miles. This would help boost the business case for wind and solar power. The proposal calls for a new grid authority to facilitate clean energy transmission, and an infrastructure financing authority to help come up with the money to pay for it.
</blockquote>
But changes have to go beyond the federal government. Equipment needs to be updated <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/06/29/power-grid-problems/">on the regional and local level</a>, too. Whether Biden will succeed in addressing the complex challenges of updating the grid remains to be seen. Without government action, private companies may be left with the job of fixing the grid, and there’s no guarantee they’ll put the long-term protection of the US power supply <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/20/us/texas-storm-electric-bills.html">ahead of their profits</a>.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/7/3/22560691/power-grid-climate-change-heat-wave">https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/7/3/22560691/power-grid-climate-change-heat-wave</a>

vox The US power grid isn’t ready for climate change

In Portland, Oregon, this week, the recorded official temperature reached 115 degrees Fahrenheit , power cables for the city’s streetcars me...

The GOP backlash against corporations isn’t real — yet

For much of this year, Republicans have been openly feuding with their most important constituency — big business.
After the January 6 insurrection, the social media giants deleted Trump’s accounts while other major corporations, like Comcast and UPS, <a href="https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2021/01/business/corporate-pac-suspensions/">suspended campaign donations</a> to Republicans who supported overturning the 2020 election.
After Georgia passed its crackdown on voting rights in April, <a href="https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2021/4/5/22368566/corporate-response-georgia-sb202">Coca-Cola and Delta Air Lines condemned the bill</a>, while <a href="https://www.espn.com/mlb/story/_/id/31183822/mlb-moving-all-star-game-atlanta-georgia-voting-law">Major League Baseball moved its All-Star Game out of Atlanta</a> — leading <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/dont-buy-conservative-rebellion-against-corporations/618519/">Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell</a> to warn that “corporations will invite serious consequences if they become a vehicle for far-left mobs to hijack our country.” <a href="https://www.npr.org/2021/04/02/983709091/these-are-the-businesses-speaking-out-against-texass-newly-proposed-election-law">Corporate criticism of Texas’s new voting legislation</a>, likely to be approved in a <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/06/22/texas-greg-abbott-special-session/">special legislative session</a>, prompted <a href="https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/politics/lone-star-politics/watch-lt-gov-dan-patrick-discusses-texas-election-ballot-security-bill/2598206/">Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick</a> (R) to openly threaten financial retaliation.
In May and June, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/us-policy/2021/06/08/republicans-business-desantis-cruise/">blocked cruise line companies’ renewed efforts</a> to require their passengers and crew to get Covid-19 vaccinations. The phrase “woke capital,” an epithet for a corporate world deemed overly left-wing, is everywhere in conservative discourse.
The liberal reaction to all this has <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/04/dont-buy-conservative-rebellion-against-corporations/618519/">largely been dismissive</a>, seeing the GOP battle with corporations as more lovers’ spat than divorce. Liberals point out that Facebook <a href="https://www.vox.com/recode/2021/6/4/22519076/trump-facebook-two-years-oversight-board">opened the door to a Trump return</a> in two years, while corporations have <a href="https://popular.info/p/what-corporate-pacs-are-doing-6-months">figured out ways around their no-donation pledges</a>. Meanwhile, they say, most of the GOP anti-corporate rhetoric isn’t backed up by policy substance: DeSantis’s fight with cruise lines is one of only a handful of Republican efforts with real teeth.
Certainly, history doesn’t give much reason to think this will all amount to something real. The GOP and corporate America have been joined at the hip for the entirety of the modern political era, animated by opposition to regulation and taxation.
Yet the tremors are worth taking seriously: They are manifestations of a tectonic shift in American politics toward polarization along <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22256052/democrats-white-suburban-voters-economy">educational lines</a>.
Whites with college degrees, a longtime Republican demographic, <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22256052/democrats-white-suburban-voters-economy">have shifted into the Democratic camp</a>; noncollege whites have <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2018/11/education-gap-explains-american-politics/575113/">become the GOP’s most important base</a>. These fundamental shifts are realigning the interests of both the corporate world and the GOP — leading the former to lean into social liberalism, while the latter embraces right-wing cultural war as its principal message.
These trends have been building up over time, and they suggest that the GOP anti-corporate turn could one day swell into something consequential, instead of mainly posturing.
An important test case is happening now. The House is currently considering <a href="https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/23/gop-infighting-big-tech-crackdown-495605">a series of anti-trust bills targeting Big Tech</a>, the corporate sector populist Republicans hate most of all. How Republicans handle this legislative fight will give us a clue as to how serious the GOP’s anti-corporate turn is.
“The longstanding relationship between the business community and the Republican Party is now changing,” says Didi Kuo, a Stanford political scientist who studies business and politics. “I’m really not sure what happens next.”
Corporate America is not a monolith. Different sectors of the economy and individual companies have different interests in politics; an oil firm and a renewable energy company will have very different views on which political side to favor. Many firms give heavily to both parties; some even favor Democrats.
But it’s fair to say that the business community is generally on the GOP’s side. A 2014 study of <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Gimpel/publication/268810620_Business_Interests_and_the_Party_Coalitions_Industry_Sector_Contributions_to_US_Congressional_Campaigns/links/5cbf1c8a92851c8d22ff6092/Business-Interests-and-the-Party-Coalitions-Industry-Sector-Contributions-to-US-Congressional-Campaigns.pdf">corporate PAC donations</a> found that 35 percent donated primarily to Republicans while a scant two percent preferred Democrats. A <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jla/article/doi/10.1093/jla/laz002/5552028">2019 paper</a>, which looked at campaign contributions from 3,800 CEOs of large companies, found that 57 percent heavily favored Republicans (only 19 percent leaned Democratic).
That makes the recent rhetorical turn in the GOP striking. In his recent book <a href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Tyranny_of_Big_Tech/rCcrzgEACAAJ?hl=en">The Tyranny of Big Tech</a>, Sen. Josh Hawley labeled companies like Google “the gravest threat to American liberty since the monopolies of the Gilded Age.” In May, Sen. Marco Rubio wrote an op-ed in <a href="https://prospect.org/economy/wall-street-must-stop-enabling-communist-china/?utm_campaign=wp_the_daily_202&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&wpisrc=nl_daily202">the left-wing American Prospect</a> blasting the GOP’s traditional pro-business policies. “Politicians in my own party have too often been reluctant to intervene over concerns about the ‘free market.’ But things are changing,” argued Rubio.
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<figcaption>Sen. Marco Rubio at a committee hearing.</figcaption>
<cite>Getty Images</cite></figure>
This kind of rhetoric is a direct outgrowth of the Trump years. The former president showed that the politics of cultural grievance can be a winning formula for the GOP — that attacks on minorities, the media, and “liberal elites” are powerfully resonant with non-college whites in particular. From vaccines to public safety to <a href="https://www.vox.com/22443822/critical-race-theory-controversy">“critical race theory,”</a> virtually all of the GOP’s messaging works to highlight the culture war. The party’s free market ideology is, as a consequence, simply less important to its public identity.
“At this point, [Republicans] are driven mostly by cultural grievances that stem from the preoccupations of their most activist followers and ... the conservative entertainment complex,” says Geoffrey Kabaservice, the vice president of political studies at the center-right Niskanen Center. “Those things really have very little to do with business’ calculations about those things that are best for it.”
While Republicans have political incentives to play up their populist, culturally conservative stances — even when they come into tension with free-market ideas — corporations face powerful pressures to take liberal positions on the social issues that most animate the GOP base.
Over the past few decades, the percentage of Americans with a college degree has <a href="https://www.census.gov/content/dam/Census/library/publications/2016/demo/p20-578.pdf">increased significantly</a>, as has <a href="https://www.hbs.edu/news/releases/Pages/degree-inflation-us-competetiveness.aspx">the percentage of good-paying jobs that require one</a>. The biggest sectors in the new “knowledge economy,” like Big Tech and finance, are full of employees with college degrees, while some traditional blue collar sectors like manufacturing have stagnated.
Between 1956 and 2016, Republicans won a majority of whites with college degrees in <a href="https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/trump-may-become-the-first-republican-in-60-years-to-lose-white-college-graduates/">every single presidential election</a>. But in the Trump years, Republicans’ identity demagoguery pushed college-educated whites — who tend to have more culturally liberal values — <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22256052/democrats-white-suburban-voters-economy">into the Democratic camp</a>.
Research suggests that these changes are behind the new corporate willingness to make liberal statements on significant cultural issues, like voter suppression and anti-trans bills. “It’s harder for businesses [now] to stay out of the chaos and say ‘we’re not involved’ in the social issues of the day,” says Zhao Li, a Princeton professor who studies the politics of business.
Liberal consumers care a lot about the politics of the corporations they buy from. One study found that Democrats are <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/2053168017738632">more likely to boycott businesses for political reasons than Republicans</a>; another found that liberal consumers are more likely to purchase a company’s product <a href="https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1086026619848144">if its CEO had publicly taken liberal political stances</a>.
For major retail corporations with high brand recognition, like Coca-Cola, the political perceptions of liberals really matters. Not only are there more college graduates than ever, but these graduates have an outsized market share because <a href="https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/page1-econ/2017/01/03/education-income-and-wealth/">college graduates make more money</a>. When you combine rising education polarization with other changes to key demographics, like the <a href="https://www.prdaily.com/report-83-of-millennials-want-brands-to-align-with-them-on-values/">overwhelmingly liberal preferences of younger Americans</a>, corporations have strong incentives to offer at least symbolic support for socially liberal causes.
But pressure on corporations isn’t just coming from the outside — it’s coming from the inside as well. The increasingly educated and urban workforce at major corporations is also pushing them in a more socially liberal direction.
A <a href="https://corymaks.files.wordpress.com/2020/09/ergs_lgbt_activism_withtitlepage.pdf">recent paper by two political scientists</a>, Cory Maks-Solomon and Josiah Mark Drewry, examined the effect of LGBTQ employee groups on every Fortune 500 company, finding “robust evidence that in highly-educated workforces LGBT employee groups persuade management to take public stances in support of LGBT rights.”
Another <a href="https://faculty.insead.edu/jasjit-singh/documents/Bode_Singh_Rogan_Corporate_Social_Initiatives_and_Employee_Retention_PRINT.pdf">study of 10,000 employees at a management consulting firm</a> found that the launch of corporate social initiatives made employees less likely to quit: “Consultants in this firm willingly took pay cuts to participate in corporate social initiatives, and their post-participation likelihood of staying at the firm was greater than that of nonparticipants.”
Beyond the culture wars, there’s also the issue of how the Republican Party’s assaults on democracy affects the stability of the American system — something corporate America is deeply invested in. Corporations may instinctively side with the GOP on policy, but if right-wing radicalism leads to market dysfunction and political instability, then that may sway business toward the Democratic Party and its small-d democratic agenda.
“As the country becomes more dysfunctional, that presents a greater existential threat to the business community that I think they’ll also be responsive to,” Kuo says.
For all the tension between the Republican Party and big business so far, there has been no break-up — not even close.
There have been policies here and there: DeSantis’s battle with cruise lines, for example, and a vote in Georgia’s House of Representatives to <a href="https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2021/04/01/georgia-house-passes-bill-stripping-delta-of-a-multimillion-tax-break-after-it-slammed-the-states-new-voting-restrictions/">eliminate Delta’s special multi-million dollar tax cut</a> as punishment for its opposition to the state’s new voting law. But the spat has been mostly rhetorical, corporate-bashing to win points with anti-elite Trumpists. The Delta bill, for example, was <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2021/04/01/politics/georgia-voting-law-house-delta-tax-breaks/index.html">never even considered by the state Senate</a>.
What would a true breakup look like? It would at least involve an end to the mutual aid agreement that’s sustained their political alliance: businesses cutting off the cash flow to the right and Republicans becoming more willing to raise taxes and regulate corporate behavior.
So far, there’s very little evidence of this happening. “It’s striking how the GOP has doubled down on very unpopular plutocratic priorities, e.g., opposition to reasonable changes in tax code,” says Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale.
When Rubio <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2021/03/12/amazon-union-not-helping-working-class-economy-column/6947823002/">wrote an op-ed</a> in March supporting the unionization drive an Amazon plant in Alabama, he argued on pure culture war grounds — casting his position as punishment for Amazon removing an anti-trans book from its book store. He also said that he would continue to oppose <a href="https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/22307891/democrats-unions-pro-act-policy-feedback">the PRO Act</a>, the transformative pro-union bill passed by Democrats in the House, because “adversarial relations between labor and management are wrong.”
Rubio’s article is unusually transparent about the hollowness of its argument. But it’s representative of the party’s anti-corporate positioning so far — all hat and no cattle.
“The party appears at this point to be caught between its old identity and this new identity that it thinks it wants to take on, due to the influence of Donald Trump. But there’s very little convincing about this transformation so far,” says Kabaservice, the Niskanen scholar.
Yet the fact that business-Republican tensions haven’t yielded much of a substantive shift doesn’t mean they won’t in the future. One of the most significant tests of the GOP-corporate alliance’s durability, at least in the short term, is the Republican relationship with tech.
<figure class="e-image"><picture class="c-picture" data-cid="site/picture_element-1625348552_5014_64094" data-cdata='{"asset_id":22696396,"ratio":"*"}'><source srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/ynHTEyMknoKKbvJlt2V2LCVmI1A=/0x0:3100x2033/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/xEKsf1QPYrpIb6s_0BddUm5cJig=/0x0:3100x2033/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wO2vxYpuJz1fzzS6f0yABOjyJIE=/0x0:3100x2033/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/mY2vF5XBRj-Shv2vmtxDtyCfOIU=/0x0:3100x2033/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7TlNYss_6H-T3VbRaBf52-gz30c=/0x0:3100x2033/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/n7Bd2g0CUoWcP93pldErBbZbgNg=/0x0:3100x2033/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/gcKoNWBMyLSKeKE7kki6MVtVPnE=/0x0:3100x2033/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/v46-RSKyb-cCJRfjSRgpbgRhabo=/0x0:3100x2033/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7cJgikVQc7bwRt-CVFFiXObEgrc=/0x0:3100x2033/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):format(webp):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1920w" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" type="image/webp" /> <img alt="In this photo illustration, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg..." data-upload-width="3100" sizes="(min-width: 1221px) 846px, (min-width: 880px) calc(100vw - 334px), 100vw" src="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/GOR0XJl1FxXs0yYZ3euIC-qnbr4=/0x0:3100x2033/1200x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg" srcset="https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/iN31VG-qWAbB2cDkhyEiyCMFlj8=/0x0:3100x2033/320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yZ6NPmLcXs-Arq2fKmIxSDFYqqc=/0x0:3100x2033/520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/yscND0P1J1n3BE1qh66bU-gzYlY=/0x0:3100x2033/720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/7TTSW0Xg6CoD1bZIN786PTvO65M=/0x0:3100x2033/920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 920w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/KYcMUH0y0txQAfJuGvAQj8yB_f4=/0x0:3100x2033/1120x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1120w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/XkObbvNCTkZ86RTUjB3rAzmbD0g=/0x0:3100x2033/1320x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1320w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/em78y7zvjIyC-p6hQFxo8JKYUqY=/0x0:3100x2033/1520x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1520w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/cyJvkpK_YrT_fssGTPn9K74JJd8=/0x0:3100x2033/1720x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1720w, https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/OLkwtkFbQI-N_9JUVA1PT0smKEU=/0x0:3100x2033/1920x0/filters:focal(0x0:3100x2033):no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/22696396/1229337652.jpg 1920w" /></picture>
<figcaption>Mark Zuckerberg testifying before Congress.</figcaption>
<cite>Pavlo Conchar/SOPA Images/LightRocket/Getty Images</cite></figure>
Republicans have long been suspicious of Big Tech, accusing them of censoring conservative speech (<a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/tech/2021/02/01/censorship-conservatives-trump-facebook-twitter-youtube/4316155001/">generally with little evidence</a>). Adding to the suspicion is that these companies — Apple, Facebook, and the like — tend to have highly educated workforces with <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/02/most-liberal-tech-companies-ranked-by-employee-donations.html">extremely liberal political views</a>.
Tensions exploded after the January 6 attack on the Capitol, when multiple platforms banned then-President Trump for fear that his inflammatory posts could incite future violence. “If Big Tech can ban a former president, what’s to stop them from silencing the American people next?” Republican National Committee chair <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/facebooks-oversight-board-rnc-trump-ban">Ronna Romney McDaniel</a> said in May after Facebook extended its Trump ban to 2023.
Currently, the GOP’s seriousness in taking Big Tech to task and using government to regulate business is being tested in the House, which is considering <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2021/06/24/tech-antitrust-bills-pass-house-committee/">a package of bills</a> strengthening anti-trust regulations on big tech companies.
The bills, <a href="https://apnews.com/article/government-and-politics-joe-biden-amazoncom-inc-apple-inc-technology-4c2765b955e4c556002aebb8e48d3c21">a Democratic-led effort that began with some Republican buy-in</a>, have gained support from prominent Trumpy House Republicans like Matt Gaetz (FL) and Madison Cawthorn (NC) — though House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy has come out against them, as has ranking House Judiciary member Jim Jordan (OH) (they have <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/politics/mccarthy-plan-big-tech-accountable-stop-bias">their own counterproposal</a>).
So far, the early signs are that GOP leadership is winning: The bills passed out of the Judiciary Committee with mostly Democratic support.
Anti-tech Republicans may well fail to bring the party to their side. But the fact that we’re even talking about a conflict between Republicans and corporate America speaks to a fundamental shift in American politics. As white voters continue to polarize along educational lines in the post-Trump era, these skirmishes between two long-time allies deserve real attention.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.vox.com/22545125/republicans-corporate-america-education-polarization">https://www.vox.com/22545125/republicans-corporate-america-education-polarization</a>

vox The GOP backlash against corporations isn’t real — yet

For much of this year, Republicans have been openly feuding with their most important constituency — big business. After the January 6 insu...

Soros-Funded Austin D.A. Indicts Army Sgt Who ‘Shot AK-47-Toting BLM Protester in Self-Defense’

<a href="https://www.austinmonitor.com/stories/2020/07/is-money-going-to-decide-travis-county-races/">Soros-funded</a> Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza on Thursday had Army Sgt Daniel Perry indicted for fatally shooting AK-47-toting Black Lives Matter “protester” Garrett Foster after he approached Perry’s car and allegedly raised his rifle at him during a “protest” in downtown Austin one year ago.
Perry was let go by police without any charges after the July 25, 2020 shooting but D.A. Garza is working to turn Austin <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=62260">into the next St. Louis</a> by <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=62310">criminalizing self-defense</a>. 
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Our office was proud to attend the flag raising ceremony today to mark the first time Travis County has flown a pride flag.
We celebrated how far our community has come and we are reminded of how much work we still have to do. <a href="https://t.co/FKrBr9y2dl">pic.twitter.com/FKrBr9y2dl</a>
— Travis County District Attorney's Office (@DATravisCounty) <a href="https://twitter.com/DATravisCounty/status/1409968864063102979?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Today our office announced that a Travis County grand jury has returned indictments against Daniel Perry for the charges of Murder and Aggravated Assault in the death of Garrett Foster.
The grand jury also returned one indictment for a misdemeanor count of deadly conduct.
— Travis County District Attorney's Office (@DATravisCounty) <a href="https://twitter.com/DATravisCounty/status/1410768388583038979?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 2, 2021</a></blockquote>
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From <a href="https://www.texastribune.org/2021/07/01/garrett-foster-indicted-murder-daniel-perry-austin-protester/">The Texas Tribune, “Army sergeant indicted on murder and aggravated assault charges after fatally shooting Austin protester Garrett Foster in 2020”</a>:
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" readability="38">
A Travis County grand jury on Thursday indicted Army Sgt. Daniel Perry on charges of murder, aggravated assault and deadly conduct after he shot and killed Garrett Foster, an armed protester in downtown Austin last year.
The former Fort Hood soldier turned himself into the Travis County Jail and was shortly released after around 2:30 p.m. Thursday on a combined $300,000 bond, according to Kristen Dark, a spokesperson for the Travis County Sheriff’s Office.
[…] Clint Broden, a Dallas-based attorney for Perry, expressed disappointment at the indictment but repeated his client’s claim of self defense and said he was confident that Perry would be acquitted.
“It is important to note that the standard of proof required for an indictment is significantly less than the standard of proof required for a conviction,” he said.
Broden said the prosecutors in the Travis County District Attorney’s office refused to allow Perry’s attorney to present written evidence to the jury.
“This refusal is unusual in Texas and begs the question of why the District Attorney’s Office would not allow this,” Broden said. “We understand the political motivations of the District Attorney, however, when this case is presented to a jury at trial and the jury gets to hear all the evidence instead of a one-sided presentation, we have every confidence that Sgt. Perry will be acquitted.”
</blockquote>
AntifaWatch has more:
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The man who defended himself against BLM rioters was indicted today a year after the incident in yet another example of how illegitimate our justice system is
Army Sgt Daniel Perry was driving Uber when rioters mobbed his car and pointed a gun towards him<a href="https://t.co/RQb3yX354o">pic.twitter.com/RQb3yX354o</a>
— AntifaWatch (@AntifaWatch2) <a href="https://twitter.com/AntifaWatch2/status/1410739907237056516?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2021</a></blockquote>
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The media describes mobbing his car and pointing a gun towards him as "motioned with the assault rifle for Mr. Perry to lower his window", as if one could tell that <a href="https://t.co/Wf6dT9txMw">https://t.co/Wf6dT9txMw</a>
Shortly before being killed Garrett made it clear why he was there<a href="https://t.co/0vQFahoJWj">pic.twitter.com/0vQFahoJWj</a>
— AntifaWatch (@AntifaWatch2) <a href="https://twitter.com/AntifaWatch2/status/1410739908600156167?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Another BLM rioter shot at Perry shortly after he defended himself. Perry then fled and immediately called police upon getting to safety.
Texas is a stand your ground state, but it looks like that doesn't apply if you defend yourself from those with a system approved ideology <a href="https://t.co/nqpSG1Opue">pic.twitter.com/nqpSG1Opue</a>
— AntifaWatch (@AntifaWatch2) <a href="https://twitter.com/AntifaWatch2/status/1410739912345677829?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Side-by-side video with both angles, you can see Perry come to a complete stop before having to defend himself from the mob and Garrett Foster
Might be worth mentioning as well, Foster was a BLM allied boog<a href="https://t.co/eYAoq9BzX9">pic.twitter.com/eYAoq9BzX9</a>
— AntifaWatch (@AntifaWatch2) <a href="https://twitter.com/AntifaWatch2/status/1410743061768937478?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 1, 2021</a></blockquote>
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Perry shared his side of the story on his <a href="https://gogetfunding.com/sgt-daniel-perry-defense-fund/">legal defense fund page at GoGetFunding</a>:
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In what can only be described as a travesty of justice, Sgt. Daniel Perry, an active duty soldier serving his country, is being prosecuted in Travis County, Texas for defending himself against a masked protestor who raised an AK-47 toward him.
Daniel Perry is a former Eagle Scout from the North Texas area and has served our country proudly for almost ten years. Sgt. Perry served a tour in Afghanistan and has been the recipient of numerous army awards, and commendations including five Army Achievement Medals.
Sgt. Perry was in the Austin area on July 25, 2020, driving for Uber. Sgt. Perry sometimes did Uber driving on the weekends to make ends meet. Although Sgt. Perry was from the North Texas area, army restrictions limited his travel to within about 80 miles of his base at Fort Hood and Austin was the most profitable locale within that radius.
Also on July 25, 2021 and prior to the incident, Garrett Foster was interviewed by a reporter regarding his decision to carry an assault weapon to an Austin protest march in a “one point sling.” During the interview, Foster explained that he chose to bring an assault weapon to a “peaceful” protest because he wanted to march and that people were “too big of pussies” to stop him from marching.
Sgt. Perry had dropped his client on or close to West 6th Street at approximately 9:15 p.m. Sgt. Perry made a right onto Congress Avenue from Fourth Street, and it was there that he first encountered a throng of people in the street. It was not immediately apparent to Sgt. Perry what group was demonstrating and, prior to turning onto Congress Avenue, Sgt. Perry had been unaware that a demonstration was taking place. After Sgt. Perry turned onto Congress Avenue, several people started beating on his vehicle. Picture showing the damage to Sgt. Perry’s car are in the possession of the police. The pictures included pictures of damage done by protestors hitting the car with brick, trying to pull the door of the frame and from bullets.
Sgt. Perry was then quickly approached by Mr. Foster, who was carrying an AK-47 in a “one point sling.” Sgt. Perry, initially believing that Mr. Foster was associated with law enforcement (who else would carry an assault rifle on the streets), complied with the command. Nevertheless, after lowering the window, it became apparent to Sgt. Perry that the individual was not with law enforcement. Foster, the individual with the AK-47, began to raise the AK-47 toward Sgt. Perry. It was only then that Sgt. Perry, who carried a handgun in his car for his own protection, fired on Foster because he believed his life to be in jeopardy. Moreover, Sgt. Perry acted in the manner in which he was trained to act when presented with a deadly threat and, consistent with that training, aimed center mass.
This training also prevented the injury of bystanders. Indeed, Sgt. Perry was only concerned with protecting his own life which was threatened by Foster’s actions and Sgt. Perry had absolutely no desire to injure other protestors, (even despite the fact that some were beating on his car) as some have tried to claim. The false narrative spread by some of the protestors that Mr. Perry purposely drove into the crowd to injure protestors is also refuted by the fact that no individuals claim they were injured by Mr. Perry’s vehicle.
Immediately thereafter, a member of the crowd began firing on Sgt. Perry’s vehicle. Sgt. Perry drove to safety and immediately called the police. He waited for the police to arrive and was fully cooperative with the police following the shooting.
Below are some of Foster’s social media posts from the days prior to the incident.
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Unfortunately, these social media posts by Foster, as well as the interview Foster did immediately prior to the protest march, paint a picture of a person who believed that anybody who interrupted what he viewed to be the exercise of his rights deserved to be shot.
To be clear, the death of Foster was tragic, and Sgt. Perry deeply sympathizes with the loss and grief experienced by Foster’s family. Nevertheless, that does not change facts. The law in Texas is clear that the State must disprove self-defense beyond a reasonable doubt. Here, Foster’s comments and actions strongly indicate that he believed he could take action into his own hands if anybody interrupted what he viewed to be the exercise of his rights. Foster did so on July 25, 2020, by starting to raise his AK-47 toward somebody who he viewed as a “pussy” interfering with the march.
</blockquote>
Right before indicting Perry for defending himself, Garza let two of the juveniles allegedly involved in the Austin mass shooting earlier this month <a href="https://austin-network.com/crime/who-is-going-to-keep-austin-safe-if-jose-garza-refuses-to-do-his-job/">off the hook.</a>
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<a href="https://t.co/CUXvTQhb6g">https://t.co/CUXvTQhb6g</a> How are the kids who shot up Sixth Street already free?<a href="https://twitter.com/JosePGarza?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JosePGarza</a> is using his department’s prosecutorial ability to push a radical ideology that’s focused on completely handcuffing the city’s criminal justice system. Where is the outrage? <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Austin?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Austin</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/safety?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#safety</a>
— Austin Network (@Austin_Network) <a href="https://twitter.com/Austin_Network/status/1409847150146723846?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 29, 2021</a></blockquote>
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“The news that the Travis County District Attorney will drop all charges against the two teenagers previously in custody for the mass shooting in downtown Austin is not sitting well with the family of the man killed in the crossfire,” <a href="https://www.texomashomepage.com/news/state-news/family-of-slain-austin-mass-shooting-victim-has-no-faith-in-investigation/">KXAN reported</a> last week.
<blockquote class="wp-block-quote" readability="22">
Nick Kantor, whose brother Douglas Kantor died after the June 12 incident on Sixth Street, said he has little faith in DA Jose Garza — and believes the investigation is heading in the wrong direction.
“Basically, what I took away from the press conference was that they are not prosecuting violent criminals anymore,” Kantor said. “Nothing we can do now is going to bring my brother back. And that’s something we have to accept and grieve in our own way. But moving forward, we don’t want to see more people going through what we are going through.”
[…] “This was a planned hit. This was the making of an assassination. And my brother was caught in the crossfire. And these assassins were free to go,” Kantor said. “I have no faith in what is going on down there.”
</blockquote>
WATCH:
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We’re now living in <a href="http://www.informationliberation.com/?id=62333">post-America</a>.
 
 
source <a href="https://www.infowars.com/posts/soros-funded-austin-d-a-indicts-army-sgt-who-shot-ak-47-toting-blm-protester-in-self-defense">https://www.infowars.com/posts/soros-funded-austin-d-a-indicts-army-sgt-who-shot-ak-47-toting-blm-protester-in-self-defense</a>

news Soros-Funded Austin D.A. Indicts Army Sgt Who ‘Shot AK-47-Toting BLM Protester in Self-Defense’

Soros-funded Travis County District Attorney Jose Garza on Thursday had Army Sgt Daniel Perry indicted for fatally shooting AK-47-toting Bl...

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Soros-Funded Austin D.A. Indicts Army Sgt Who ‘Shot AK-47-Toting BLM Protester in Self-Defense’

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