Iris Automation Is Hiring a Recruiting Lead – AI for Drones

There is a photo of Christine Blasey Ford from her Thursday appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee that captures why her testimony about Brett Kavanaugh—the Supreme Court nominee she has accused of sexually assaulting her in the summer of 1982, when they were both teenagers—felt true. She is raising her hand as the oath is administered. Her eyes are closed and she is taking a deep breath, as if bracing herself not only for the pain of reliving a horrible personal trauma on national television, but also for the possibility that, no matter what she says and no matter how convincingly she says it, she will not be believed, that it is all for naught, that Kavanaugh will be confirmed anyway. In that moment, she has so little to gain, so much to lose.

By the end of the day, those fears appeared to be coming true. Though observers across the ideological spectrum found her testimony to be achingly credible, it was little match for the machinery of partisan politics. Republican senators lined up to say they were voting for Kavanaugh’s nomination. The conservative press went into rhapsodies over his wild, angry, tearful testimony, which they took as compelling evidence of his sincerity, even as liberals dismissed it as surreal Trumpian bombast. Few were putting much faith in a handful of Republican fence-sitters—Lisa Murkowski, Susan Collins, Jeff Flake—to stem the grinding momentum in Kavanaugh’s favor. His nomination goes to a committee vote on Friday.

This spectacle was, in many ways, the ultimate test of the #MeToo movement and its exhortation to “believe women.” Though other women have accused Kavanaugh of bad behavior, they were not called as witnesses. Though another man—Mark Judge—was allegedly present when Kavanaugh allegedly attempted to rape Ford, he was also not present, turning the hearing into a he-said/she-said affair. And at stake was not just the job of a high-powered man, but a lifetime appointment to the Supreme Court, which provides powerful incentives for certain politicians to not believe the woman.

But it would be inaccurate to say, if Kavanaugh is confirmed, that Ford was thwarted by naked partisan interests alone. The most sinister part of yesterday’s hearing was the sight of Republicans insisting they did believe she had been assaulted, just not by Kavanaugh. (As Kavanaugh himself put it, “I’m not questioning that Dr. Ford may have been sexually assaulted by some person in some place at some time.”) One of the central premises of the #MeToo movement had been accepted and absorbed, but in such a way that its impact was neutered. Indeed, the saga of Kavanaugh saw the appropriation of several #MeToo tropes in the service of defending the accused, muddying the distinction between victim and perpetrator, the powerful and the powerless.

There would otherwise seem to be few similarities between their respective testimonies. Ford delivered an instantly seminal account of sexual abuse and its lifelong effects, and on the biggest possible stage. As many women noted, she mustered the kinds of wiles that are typical of women in patriarchal settings (all eleven Republicans on the committee are white men). She showed her interrogators all due deference: “Does that work for you?” she said at one point. “I’m used to being collegial.” As a psychologist, she bolstered her account with expert testimony on the way trauma affects memory, illuminating a neurological cross-section of pain: “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” Ford said, her voice breaking. “The uproarious laughter between the two. They’re having fun at my expense.”

Kavanaugh, in contrast, launched a slashing, unprecedented attack on the Democratic members of the committee, accusing them of replacing “‘advice and consent’ with ‘search and destroy.’” He gave full vent to his outrage, saying his reputation had been dragged through the mud. Borrowing from Donald Trump (who heartily approved of his performance), he blamed the Clintons and their supporters for orchestrating a vast left-wing conspiracy against his nomination. He frequently dissolved into tears, on topics ranging from his daughters to his after-school weight-lifting sessions in high school. And above all, he denied, denied, denied.

For this viewer (and the perspective of the individual viewer is all-important in this polarized matter), it was a case of a person protesting too much. There were times when he stumbled, such as when Senator Dick Durbin asked whether he personally would want the FBI to investigate Ford’s accusation—for a moment, Kavanaugh seemed stunned into silence. There were little lies and deceptions strewn throughout his testimony, such as his innocent definitions of “boof” and “devil’s triangle.” And there was nothing substantial to exonerate him—certainly not his now-infamous calendar, which may in fact contain clues that point to his guilt.

His testimony was, overall, one of the most disturbing things to have happened in this presidency. It suggested, at the very least, that Republicans should find another candidate—one who is not so prone to explosive rage, for starters—to nominate to the Supreme Court. But to conservative viewers, Kavanaugh’s performance had virtually the same effect that Ford’s testimony had on liberal viewers. They praised him for showing his raw emotions. They admired his pluck in the face of hostile media coverage. They said, enough is enough. As David French wrote in National Review:

Today, there were conservatives across the nation who choked up—some openly wept—during his testimony. Not because they disrespect women. Not because they excuse sexual assault. But because they also love their sons. Because they are tired of being painted as evil when they are seeking to do what’s right. Because they want to see a man fight with honor.

This mirroring of Kavanaugh and Ford is no happenstance. It cannot simply be chalked up to the partisan prism through which all reality in this country is refracted. No, that conservatives were weeping over Kavanaugh’s testimony suggests that he pulled some of the same emotional triggers that have animated the #MeToo movement. If Ford has suffered her whole life from that one night in 1982, then so will Kavanaugh: He stated that “my family and my name have been totally and permanently destroyed by vicious and false additional accusations.” (Emphasis added.) If women’s rage is finally acceptable, well then so is Kavanaugh’s; as Rich Lowry, also of National Review, wrote, Kavanaugh “showed the nation a powerfully human reaction to the attacks on him.” And if we must believe women—and all the Republicans seemed to agree that we must believe Ford suffered some kind of abuse—then we must believe men, too.

This confluence of Kavanaugh and Ford’s storylines found its clearest manifestation in an operatic performance by Senator Lindsey Graham, who told Kavanaugh, “She’s as much of a victim as you are.” By then the #MeToo-ization of Brett Kavanaugh was complete, not only giving Republicans the runway to vote for him, but also reinforcing a theme of conservative politics that gained prominence with Donald Trump’s campaign for president: that the real victims in this country are white men.

In June, Donald Trump traveled to Mount Pleasant, Wisconsin, for the groundbreaking ceremony of the Taiwanese electronics company Foxconn’s new manufacturing plant—a 20 million-square-foot complex that state officials say will create 13,000 jobs for southeastern Wisconsin over the next 15 years.

By the time Trump visited the site, however, those claims were already in doubt. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, a Republican, had offered Foxconn CEO Terry Gou nearly $3 billion in tax credits and exemptions to move his company to the state. But Wisconsin won’t get any of that money back until 2042, only breaking even then—according to a report released by the state’s Legislative Fiscal Bureau last August—if Foxconn gives all 13,000 jobs to Wisconsin residents. Thus far, the company has only committed to 3,000. And it has reneged on these kinds of promises before. In 2013, the company said it would hire 500 workers and spend $30 million on a plant in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, and then never built it.

Lavish, lousy incentive deals aren’t unusual. These packages rarely influence corporate executives; CEOs tend, instead, to look for good infrastructure and skilled labor when selecting a new location. According to research by Timothy Bartik at the W.E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research, tax incentives only change their minds between 2 and 25 percent of the time. When companies come to town, unemployment tends to stay where it was. Economic growth doesn’t ramp up. Big corporations nab about 90 percent of government incentive dollars, leaving small businesses almost nothing. And often, all that’s left is a big hole in the state budget.

This math is familiar—and yet, incentive packages have tripled since 1990. Thanks to blockbuster deals like Foxconn and the beauty pageant underway for Amazon’s second headquarters, which drew a whopping $7 billion bid from New Jersey and an offer from Fresno, California, to give Amazon joint control over where the city spends its tax dollars, incentive packages could double over the next five or ten years, reaching $100 billion annually, according to Bartik. Politicians, under pressure to show voters that they’re creating jobs, are increasingly reaching for the flashy choice: cutting checks to corporations that are all too happy to take them. And so far they haven’t faced a reckoning.

America’s first tax incentive package was in 1791, when New Jersey convinced Alexander Hamilton to move his manufacturing company to the state. These schemes wouldn’t become widely popular, however, until after World War II, when Southern states—hoping to transition their economies away from agriculture by luring manufacturers from the North—began offering companies tax breaks.

Despite all the evidence that these deals don’t work, they have remained popular with elected officials. It’s easy to strike them and even easier to claim political credit for them. “A company comes and they have a ribbon-cutting ceremony—that’s a way to show as an individual you are the deal maker,” said Nathan Jensen, co-author of Incentives to Pander: How Politicians Use Corporate Welfare for Political Gain. These deals often last years, even decades; the politicians who brokered them are usually safely out of office once the fiscal damage becomes apparent.

That is why politicians can get away with offering $62 million to Marriott to convince it to move its headquarters just five miles down the road, as Maryland did in 2016, even though two years earlier, neighboring Virginia had given a Chinese industrial ceramics manufacturer called Lindenburg Industry LLC more than a $1 million to build an air pollution device factory in Appomattox County—only to discover that the company was a fraud. (It had used a fake website to get the funding and then pocketed it without hiring a single resident.)

Often, voters don’t realize that they are the ones who suffer the most from these deals. In Texas, for example, public schools have lost $4 billion to Governor Gregg Abbott’s Office of Economic Development since 2002. New Jersey and Michigan face billions in liabilities. And even when politicians try to halt tax incentives, companies seem to find a way to keep getting them. In 2015, Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner, facing almost $9 billion in debt, imposed a moratorium on new economic incentives. Then ConAgra Foods, the agricultural giant with headquarters in Nebraska, told state officials that it would move its offices to Chicago, if it got the kind of incentives that were at the time prohibited. So state officials tacked $10.5 million in tax breaks onto a previous request, even as they were forced to close museums, withhold funding for nonprofits, and stop doling out lottery payments. (ConAgra’s CEO later said the incentives had nothing to do with the move.)

There are better ways to jump-start local economies. Aaron K. Chatterji of Duke’s Fuqua School of Business has proposed creating a Main Street Fund to support states that invest in choices that are smarter than incentives. Those could be seed money for startups, services to help businesses scale up, or a focus on attracting particular kinds of businesses, as Amy Liu of the Brookings Institution has suggested. But first, cities and states would have to cease offering big bucks to big business.

Ultimately, these deals aren’t just about corporations looking to get a windfall where they can. It’s politicians, too, who, through their desire for a quick and easy win, end up robbing their constituents of money that could be much better spent elsewhere.

Before Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh faced multiple allegations of sexual assault, his views on abortion were seen as the biggest threat to his confirmation. Democrats and many legal analysts argued that his past rulings, writings, and statements on the subject made it clear: If Kavanaugh were to secure a seat on the nation’s highest court, he would vote to overturn Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that made abortion legal nationwide.

Abortion was always going to be an issue in the 2018 midterms, as it is in every election. But it will be especially so if the Senate votes on Kavanaugh before November 6. If that vote fails, the right will use it to mobilize anti-abortion voters to protect the Republicans’ slim majority in the Senate, which likely would ensure that an equally conservative judge was confirmed to the Supreme Court. If the vote succeeds, the left will use Kavanaugh’s confirmation to do the opposite, encouraging pro-choice voters to elect Democrats who will fight to preserve abortion access in the face of a conservative court.

There’s been a lot of talk about 2018 being the “Year of the Woman,” because the #MeToo movement and the backlash to a misogynistic president are motivating Democratic women to vote and run for office in record numbers. But this conversation largely has neglected the fact that reproductive rights are proving to be a mobilizing force this fall, too.

“The issue is getting a fraction of the attention of President Donald Trump, health care and immigration,” Politico’s James Arkin wrote on Wednesday. “But Republican and anti-abortion groups have made it a major part of their ground game.” In the last two months, the piece notes, anti-abortion canvassers have knocked on more than 1.6 million doors in six states where Republicans believe the issue could give them a boost in toss-up Senate races. “For the first time in several midterms, the GOP is worried its base won’t turn out to vote, and abortion is a powerful motivator for the conservatives who could put Republican Senate candidates over the top in key states,” Arkin wrote.

Abortion access is also a powerful motivator for liberals, a fact pro-choice groups aren’t taking for granted. Planned Parenthood recently launched “its largest voter contact campaign for a midterm election,” USA Today reported earlier this month. That campaign includes an effort to knock on more than 3 million doors, and send information by mail to another 1.5 million voters. “When we talk to voters about what’s at risk for their health care access … they listen to us,” Deirdre Schifeling, executive director of Planned Parenthood Votes, told the paper.

The two sides are battling over more than just Kavanaugh’s confirmation and the potential overturn of Roe v. Wade. Come election day, voters will be deciding which party controls Congress, and thus what future legislation Congress might consider and pass. Party control could determine, for example, whether Congress votes to repeal the Hyde Amendment, which bans federal funding for abortions except in certain cases. It could also determine the amount of federal funding given to Planned Parenthood and other women’s health providers across the country.

Reproductive rights battles will also play out on the state level, notably in the 36 gubernatorial races. These elections are of particular importance to the anti-abortion right. “The thing pro-life people have been pushing for decades now on the federal level is just for the Supreme Court to return the issue to the states,” said Daniel Burns, a Catholic political scientist at the University of Dallas, in comments to the National Catholic Register. “It doesn’t make sense if you only care about the Supreme Court nominee and then don’t also pay attention to your state elections.”

These statewide elections should be important to the left, too, since decisions at that level often affect how easy it is to obtain a legal abortion. An increasing number of states are implementing Targeted Restrictions on Abortion Providers, otherwise known as TRAP laws, which can make it so expensive to operate a clinic that many are forced to close. This means women have to travel farther to access the procedure. Many states also have passed or considered laws banning certain types of abortions; requiring waiting periods before women are allowed to have them; or requiring permission from the man involved.

And voters in three states will be deciding on abortion issues directly come November 6. Ballot propositions in West Virginia and Alabama will ask voters whether to amend the state constitution to declare that there is no right to abortion. If Roe v. Wade is overturned—thereby returning the issue to the states, as it was before 1973—abortion immediately would become illegal in those two states. In Oregon, voters will decide whether to ban public funding from going toward abortions that are not medically necessary. But as the Trump presidency and Kavanaugh hearings have made clear, it’s that a woman’s right to control her own body will be on the ballot in every state, whether explicitly or not.