Power Substations Across the Country Keep Getting Attacked. What Gives?

There have been at least 14 attacks on power stations across the country this year.

On December 3, two North Carolina power stations were struck with gunfire, leading to some 40,000 residents being without power, many of them for days.

Since mid-November, Oregon’s and western Washington’s electrical grids have been host to six attacks—some led by people with firearms—leaving customers experiencing brief outages in both states.

And in September, substations in Florida were targeted six times, with intruders forcing entry and tripping equipment that caused brief outages.

Federal agencies are becoming increasingly concerned amid the string of attacks. On December 2, the FBI co-issued a memo warning utilities about the attacks. North Carolina’s stations were attacked just a day later.

At the end of November, the Department of Homeland Security warned that “lone offenders and small groups” were continuing “to pose a persistent and lethal threat to the Homeland,” including on U.S. “critical infrastructure.”

In January, The Daily Beast obtained an earlier DHS intelligence report warning that extremist groups identified the “electric grid as a particularly attractive target given its interdependency with other infrastructure sectors.”

And earlier this month, CNN obtained a 14-page document circulating on Telegram that included a white supremacist instruction guide for how to conduct low-technology attacks that foment chaos, including attacking a power grid with firearms.

“When the lights don’t come back on … all hell will break lose [sic], making conditions desirable for our race to once again take back what is ours,” the document reads.

In February, three men pleaded guilty of plotting to attack substations with firearms; the trio were alleged white supremacists who had for years strategized how to incite civil unrest, a potential race war, and subsequently the second Great Depression.

The infrastructure connecting the nation is under increasingly high threat. And if enough light isn’t shined on what’s going on, we may soon lose that light, literally.

On Tuesday, Oregon Governor Kate Brown announced the state will be commuting the sentences of all 17 people on death row in the state, moving them instead to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

“I have long believed that justice is not advanced by taking a life, and the state should not be in the business of executing people—even if a terrible crime placed them in prison,” Brown said in a statement.

Brown’s action pushes forward with moratoriums first established by her Democratic predecessor, John Kitzhaber, in 2011.

“I also recognize the pain and uncertainty victims experience as they wait for decades while individuals sit on death row—especially in states with moratoriums on executions—without resolution. My hope is that this commutation will bring us a significant step closer to finality in these cases.”

Brown’s decision, made as she prepares to depart office after being term-limited, follows a growing opposition to the death penalty. Twenty-three states and Washington, D.C., have abolished the death penalty, while two others, California and Pennsylvania, have governor-issued moratoriums, as Oregon previously had. The death penalty is still legal in 27 states, including the states with moratoriums.

According to the Death Penalty Information Center, 17 people have been executed in 2022, all in Alabama, Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, and Texas, as of November 29. And as of April 1, over 2,400 people are on death row.

“The death penalty is immoral. It is an irreversible punishment that does not allow for correction; is wasteful of taxpayer dollars; does not make communities safer; and cannot be and never has been administered fairly and equitably,” Brown said.

LGBTQ activists and allies in San Antonio, Texas, turned a far-right attack on a drag show into an open-air party.

On Tuesday night, armed members of “This Is Texas Freedom Force,” which the FBI calls an “extremist militia group,” protested outside San Antonio’s Aztec Theatre as it hosted a drag show.

The protesters carried signs reading “Stop Groomers and Pedos,” while members of the San Antonio Family Association were also in attendance, waving signs reading “Marriage = Husband + Wife,” and “Honk for Marriage.”

But counterprotesters showed up in even bigger numbers on Tuesday, and according to Texas Observer reporter Steven Monacelli, they turned the night into a giant party.

A November report from GLAAD found that drag events faced at least 124 significant threats, just this year. Last week, another San Antonio venue, The Starlighter, canceled drag events for the rest of year due to safety threats and harassment.

Many of the far-right protesters on Tuesday came bearing arms, and so too did the counterprotesters, including a military veteran who sported a “FCK NZS” patch on his vest as he sought to support LGBTQ people.

In a basic sense, it’s obviously disheartening to see people take up arms against one other. No less while one side—whether by forced delusion from profiteering right-wing hacks or their own entrenched reactionary views—seeks to strip away fundamental civil rights from people.

On the other hand, the manner in which masses showed up to defend those whose rights are under attack is animating.

This kind of protest—one that presents a rejection of the restrictive and angry nature of reactionary conservatism—is profound. The counterprotesters, in their “open air party” allyship, showcased what can come from sharing compassion and love and radical empathy with people. That kind of joy can maintain a movement and can perhaps welcome others to join, even those who may have been seen as “too far gone.”

The Twitter account tracking Elon Musk’s private jet has been suspended, a month after Musk had promised not to ban the profile in the name of “free speech.”

Jack Sweeney, who ran the jet tracker, had told Business Insider on Sunday that his account had already been “shadowbanned,” meaning its visibility had been restricted. As of Wednesday, the account was fully removed.

Since Musk—a self-described “free speech absolutist,” except, apparently, when it comes to jokes at his expense—took over Twitter, multiple accounts have been banned for a variety of reasons.

Several comedians and actors were suspended for mocking the Tesla founder, while a few prominent liberal accounts were blocked (and ultimately reinstated) for no apparent reason.

But other forms of free speech have abounded under Musk. In the 12 hours alone following his chaotic Twitter takeover, use of the n-word increased almost 500 percent, according to the National Contagion Research Institute.

A report released Tuesday by Media Matters and GLAAD found that anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, particularly use of the word “groomer,” has shot up since Musk took the reins in October. Nine well-known anti-LGBTQ accounts saw a 1,200 percent increase in retweets of posts using the slur.

Meanwhile, mentions of a prominent pro-LGBTQ account in tweets using the slur rose more than 225,000 percent.

And Musk has restored accounts previously suspended for propagating violence, including former President Donald Trump and neo-Nazi Andrew Anglin.

Twitter has also dropped its Covid-19 misinformation regulations, and on Monday night dissolved its Trust and Safety Council, the independent advisory group formed in 2016 to address issues on the platform including hate speech, violence, and abuse.

It would seem Twitter is becoming less of a free speech haven and more of a “free-for-all hellscape”...which Musk also promised would not happen.

Sean Casten has no shame when it comes to climate advocacy.

In fact, the Illinois representative spent his Tuesday morning singing praises for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), to the tune of Rihanna’s “Work.”

“To my colleagues in the Senate, the eyes of the nation in this chamber are on you, we will never, no never, neglect you. We do not hold your past against you,” Casten urged the Senate, to a rhythm that would make Lin Manuel-Miranda blush. “But you need to get it done, done, done, done, done, done.”

“Mr. Speaker, what else can I say, I’m trying babe,” Casten finished, yielding to presiding Speaker Pat Ryan.

FERC oversees much of the energy sector, including interstate electricity transmission, hydroelectric project licensing, and natural gas and oil pipeline projects. Casten—who beat a six-term Republican incumbent in his district in 2018—was seeking to bring attention to the Senate failing to renominate FERC’s fifth commissioner, Chairman Richard Glick.

Biden had set a previous goal of a zero-carbon pollution power sector by 2035, and a net-zero emissions economy by 2050, something the Inflation Reduction Act puts America on track to approach. Massive electricity generation, transmission, and storage are needed to attain such goals. Without a fully-staffed FERC, it’ll be hard to meet them.

The danger is if any FERC decisions related to the energy transition are split 2-2, Casten told The New Republic. “The things that we’re trying to do, that capital markets are trying to do, to give us cleaner, more reliable, more efficient energy are now going to be stalled just for a bureaucratic reason because we didn’t appoint a commissioner. It’s an own-goal.”

“A deadlocked FERC would eliminate up to 80 percent of the emissions reductions created by the IRA,” Casten noted in his musical remarks Tuesday.

For months, the fate of Glick’s renomination has been up in the air. Senator Joe Manchin, who has enjoyed millions of dollars from coal companies he founded, chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee tasked with conducting hearings with FERC nominees. Thus far, the senator has refused to hold a hearing.

In March, Manchin did call a hearing, but only to reprimand Glick and the commission’s Democrats for requiring more information from natural gas projects about their economic justification and environmental impacts. And Manchin was further incensed after President Biden last month called to shut down coal-powered energy plants.

Manchin, who has spent months lobbying for permitting reform that would—beyond clearing the path for a natural gas pet project in his own state—ostensibly promote construction of new electrical transmission lines, is hindering the staffing of the agency that would oversee that reform. He moreover threatens the timely execution of the IRA, one of Biden’s most signature accomplishments.

Last year, Casten led a #HotFERCSummer campaign featuring House floor renditions inspired by Megan Thee Stallion, Fergie, and Dolly Parton to advocate for FERC-related legislation and to fill a previously empty FERC seat, which was completed in November 2021.

And his advocacy continues.

“Having had some degree of success to break the deadlock last time—just at the expense of humiliating myself on the House floor—I thought we’d try to do it again and cringe it up and do some more dad jokes and see if we can strike lightning twice.”