Today’s comic by Matt Bors is Pelosi vs. Trump vs. The Squad:
• More than 3 million people in this election cycle have given Democrats more $420 million via ActBlue, showing that small, on-line donors will have another big impact in 2020: “These donors reflect a tremendous amount of energy and interest,” said Erin Hill, ActBlue executive director. “Seeing that kind of energy early is a testament to how engaged and empowered the grass-roots are.” The donors have contributed campaign cash to more than 9,000 Democratic campaigns and groups so far. More than half the donations given through ActBlue were made on mobile phones. “Donald Trump has raised a bunch of money from small-dollar donors and has been an effective small-dollar fundraiser. So it’s important for us to make sure that we’re building the networks . . . on the left,” Hill said. “Small-dollar donors on the left are going to be key to beating Trump in November.”
• Class-action suit says AT&T secretly sold customers’ real-time locations to creditors and bounty hunters:
Despite assurances to the contrary, AT&T has been selling its customers’ location data to creditors, bounty hunters, landlords, prison officials, and all sorts of third parties, according to data privacy watchdog Electronic Frontier Foundation in a federal class action filed Tuesday.
AT&T is the second largest wireless carrier in the United States, with more than 153 million subscribers.
The class action led by customers Katherine Scott, Carolyn Jewel and George Pontis also names aggregators LocationSmart and Zumigo, which bought location and network information from AT&T and sold it down a chain of third parties for commercial purposes.
• Ancestors of modern humans interbred with at least five archaic human groups as they moved out of Africa and across Asia: We know two of those archaic groups—Neanderthals and Denisovans—but the unnamed other three have only been detected as traces of DNA in different modern populations. “MIxing events” with these other groups were very common in Southeast Asia. As has been learned, some Neanderthal genes have an impact today, even though they only make up 1.5%-2.1% of all European- and Asian-descended populations, as well as a handful of African-descended populations. Scientists seem likely to learn that Denisovan genes and possibly DNA from those other three groups will have modern impacts, too.
MIDDAY TWEET
• Study shows fossil fuels not nearly so efficient as previously thought:
Oil, coal and natural gas have generally returned energy at a ratio of 25:1, meaning that for every barrel of oil used in production, 25 barrels have been made. But that measurement, called energy return on investment (EROI), has traditionally been taken when fossil fuels are removed from the ground, and fails to account for energy used during the refining process.
When the refining process is accounted for, EROI drops to about 6:1, according to a new University of Leeds study.
• Meanwhile, wind is providing enough electricity to power two Scotlands: In the first half of the year, wind turbines pumped out 9.8 million megawatt-hours of electricity in Scotland. That’s enough to power 4.47 million homes. But Scotland only has around 2.6 million. Says Robin Parker, the Climate and Energy Policy Manager at the World Wide Fund for Nature: "These are amazing figures, Scotland's wind energy revolution is clearly continuing to power ahead. Up and down the country, we are all benefiting from cleaner energy and so is the climate."
• Trump said to be at odds with advisers over sanctioning Turkey:
While the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump appears set to sanction Turkey as it receives components for the S-400, an advanced Russian missile defense system, the decision to enact them sits with U.S. President Donald Trump—who said on Tuesday that it was “not fair” to halt the sale of U.S. F-35 fighter jets to the country.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan appears to be banking on Trump’s disagreement with other administration officials. Turkey can’t afford any sanctions: It is edging closer to an economic crisis, with the Turkish lira falling earlier this week as Erdogan fired the governor of the country’s central bank.
On
today’s Kagro in the Morning show:
Procedure Man to the rescue! We explain "words taken down" and other rules strategery. Greg Dworkin manages to sneak some polling in, despite all the excitement. Why oversight is so… damn… slow. Roger Stone silenced! Video of Trump being creepy!