Homeowners Face Eminent Domain Bulldozers As Data Centers Demand Ever More Power

Homeowners Face Eminent Domain Bulldozers As Data Centers Demand Ever More Power

 TYLER DURDEN

Georgia Power isn’t negotiating anymore. The Southern Company subsidiary is seizing dozens of homes and hundreds of easements across Coweta and Fayette counties to ram through a 35-mile, 500-kilovolt transmission line that will feed at least four massive AI data centers. Project Wansley is just the latest flashpoint in a backlash that has been building for months.

At least 20 to 30 homes face outright demolition. Another 300-plus properties will get permanent easements for towers planted in backyards and next to pools.

But residents like Ansley Brown are fighting back. Her mother bought their family home in 2003 through a USDA rural development loan for single mothers. Now the utility wants the property for the corridor. Brown’s viral TikTok exposing the lowball offers (she says $70,000 to $100,000 below market) has racked up millions of views and drawn state lawmakers into the fight. 

Georgia Power says the line is essential.

The company is racing to add roughly 10 gigawatts of new generating capacity over the next five years, with executives openly stating that  about 80% of that power will go to data centers. Meanwhile, transmission has become the bottleneck, and utilities are turning to eminent domain to clear the path.

This isn’t happening in isolation. We’ve been pounding the table on data center resistance, from Northern Virginia counties rejecting new substations to Texas communities suing over water drawdowns and power rate spikes. The pattern is the same: hyperscale demand collides with local infrastructure limits, and the costs get socialized while the profits stay private.

Electricity prices are already feeling the pressure. Utilities across the Southeast and Midwest have warned of double-digit residential rate hikes tied directly to data center load growth. Georgia Power’s own filings show residential customers absorbing a growing share of the bill for transmission and generation built primarily for big tech. 

The same dynamic is playing out with Meta’s Georgia facilities, where local reporting has highlighted water quality complaints, including muddy runoff affecting nearby residents, alongside the power demands.

We’ve seen this movie before with pipelines and wind farms. The difference now is the sheer scale of the load and the speed at which it’s arriving. Data centers don’t just want power; they want it yesterday, and they’re willing to let utilities use the state’s hammer to get it. The pushback in Georgia is a warning shot as more communities draw the same line.

‘The next blow will be more painful’: Russian experts are signaling something bigger than retaliation

‘The next blow will be more painful’: Russian experts are signaling something bigger than retaliation

RT

On May 25, the Russian Foreign Ministry issued a strong statement regarding Ukraine. Condemning the recent strike by Ukrainian forces on a college building and dormitory in Starobelsk which resulted in the deaths of 21 students and many injuries, the ministry warned that the incident was the last straw for Russia and that its “cup of patience has overflowed.”

According to the Foreign Ministry, the Russian military will now systematically target defense industry facilities in Kiev. Moscow urged foreigners, including diplomats and representatives of international organizations, to leave the Ukrainian capital “as soon as possible” and advised civilians to stay away from defense industry facilities.

Following the statement, the newspaper Kommersant asked Russian experts to assess the Foreign Ministry’s message.

Andrey Ilnitsky, military expert, member of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy (CFDP):

The Foreign Ministry’s statement regarding the targeted strike on an educational institution in Starobelsk, which resulted in the death of students, highlighted that the ‘cup of patience’ had overflowed. 

This means that the amount of suffering and anger that society and the state can put up with has reached a certain breaking point. In such a situation, transitioning to a strategy of ‘managed escalation’ seems like a rational necessity. 

It is essential to understand that the spiritual essence of ‘managed escalation’ lies not in revenge but in a moral cause-and-effect relationship: justice acts as an objective spiritual law, a form of retribution that cannot be avoided. In military terms, this strategy involves gradually increasing the costs for the Ukrainian nationalists and their Western partners. 

The adversary must realize that every step we take up the escalation ladder sends a clear message about our serious intentions, the inevitable expansion of strikes and the means of attack, demonstrating that the previous limits of restraint have been exhausted, and the next blow will be even more painful and will cause greater damage.

More...

NATO Practices Scenarios for Attacking Russia, Belarus Union State During Drills - Shoigu

NATO Practices Scenarios for Attacking Russia, Belarus Union State During Drills - Shoigu

Sputnik

NATO countries are practicing scenarios for attacks on the Union State of Russia and Belarus during their exercises, Russian Security Council Secretary Sergei Shoigu said on Tuesday. 

Earlier in the day, the official told reporters that more and more new weapons appear, noting that he wishes there were none.

"During numerous military exercises, and according to your information, there are almost seven of them taking place at the same time, the NATO armed forces are practicing scenarios for attacking the Union State," Shoigu said at a meeting with Belarusian Security Council State Secretary Alexander Volfovich.

The deployment of Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons and Oreshnik missiles in Belarus has significantly increased the deterrence effect on the West, Shoigu also said.

"According to military experts, the deployment of Russian non-strategic nuclear weapons and the Oreshnik missile system on the territory of Belarus ... significantly increased the deterrent effect [on the West]," Shoigu said at a meeting with Belarusian Security Council State Secretary Alexander Volfovich.

Will Russia Retaliate Against NATO?

A Russian Nuclear Attack on NATO?

Ron Unz

...During these months, this dire situation had naturally drawn attention away from other conflicts, notably including Russia’s continuing war with Ukraine. Furthermore, advances in drone technology have drastically reduced the pace of Russian progress on the battlefield, with signs of a deadlock developing. Prof. John Mearsheimer even recently suggested that contrary to his own expectations the ultimate result of the Ukraine War might be the sort of frozen conflict that some others had long predicted.

When that war originally began with a Russian invasion in February 2022 almost all observers had expected a very short military conflict, though one that might have long-lasting strategic consequences. But Ukraine’s very large armed forces fought with unexpected determination while dramatic changes in military technology, especially involving the use of drones, largely halted what had been expected to be a rapid Russian advance. As a result, the war has now easily passed its four year mark, already outlasting the Soviet war against Nazi Germany fought more than three generations ago.

During all of this period, pro-Russian analysts have insisted that Ukraine’s defeat was merely a matter of time, with Russia’s cautious, risk-averse military strategy gradually grinding down the Ukrainian armed forces and likely to soon cause a collapse of the front lines. The argument was always made that huge Russian advantages in manpower, weapons systems, and munitions production were inflicting disproportionate Ukrainian casualties, thereby ensuring an ultimate Russian victory. There were regular predictions regarding the imminent collapse of the Ukrainian front lines or the disintegration of the Ukrainian government, but none of these events ever transpired.

For the last couple of years, I’ve regularly watched Andrew Napolitano’s weekly interviews with Dr. Gilbert Doctorow, someone whose business activities had led him to spend many years living and working in Russia. Although he now lives in the West, he still regularly visits Russia and also seeks to monitor the Russian situation both through his contacts and by watching the leading political discussion shows. In recent months, he has reported a growing amount of elite and popular dissatisfaction with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s conduct of the war, which many believe has now dragged on far too long without any decisive victory, while killing and maiming far too many Russians.

Doctorow has also claimed that Russians have been greatly disturbed by the increasing number 0f successful Ukrainian drone strikes and other attacks deep inside their enormous land, and the lack of effective responses by Putin to deter these. There have also been other escalating provocations by the NATO countries, including the seizure of Russian oil tankers on the high seas, and these actions have gone unanswered.

In some of his remarks, Doctorow has even suggested that if these incidents and the resulting sense of Russian weakness continued unabated, Putin might be removed from power in some sort of palace coup. Although I’m quite skeptical of this possibility and it has obviously not come to pass, merely broaching such an idea represents a huge shift in apparent sentiment. His blogposts have recently grown scathing in their criticism of Putin’s conduct of the war.

One strange aspect of this current conflict is that Russia has essentially been fighting NATO with both hands tied behind its back. NATO missiles using NATO targeting intelligence and key NATO personnel—legally laundered through the fig-leaf of its Ukrainian proxy—have regularly struck deep inside Russia, inflicting many serious blows, including sinking the flagship and other vessels of Russia’s Black Sea fleet, but Russia has refused to respond in kind. So in effect, the NATO countries have constituted a safe haven for producing and assembling the military hardware and systems used to equip Ukraine’s forces without suffering any risk of Russian retaliation. Russian cities have been struck by NATO missiles but NATO cities and their populations have not faced any similar threat…

This has led to the growing criticism that Putin and his government have been far too cautious, risk-averse, and legalistic in their conduct of the war. This critics have emphasized that they have allowed their NATO adversaries to repeatedly cross Russia’s bright red lines, thereby suggesting Russian weakness and vulnerability and inviting further escalatory steps that might eventually lead the world to disaster.

More...

IDF pushes north of Lebanon security zone; Netanyahu says Israel seizing ‘strategic positions’

IDF pushes north of Lebanon security zone; Netanyahu says Israel seizing ‘strategic positions’

Stav Levaton

Nava Freiberg

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced Tuesday that Israel is “intensifying operations” in Lebanon by taking strategic positions and reinforcing the security buffer zone as the IDF pushed past the lines it held as it seeks to counter the recent surge in drone attacks by Hezbollah.

The announcement, which the premier made during a full security cabinet session Tuesday evening, came as the Israel Defense Forces confirmed that it has expanded ground operations beyond the designated security zone in parts of southern Lebanon in recent days, in an effort to push Hezbollah operatives farther north and reduce the threat of explosive drone attacks on northern Israeli communities.

It also came as the Israeli Air Force escalated its fire against Hezbollah, carrying out over 100 strikes in the Beqaa Valley in eastern Lebanon and across the country’s south overnight and throughout Tuesday.

“We are intensifying our operations in Lebanon. The IDF is operating with significant forces on the ground and taking control of strategically dominant positions. We are reinforcing the security buffer zone in order to protect the communities of northern Israel,” Netanyahu said in a video released by his office.

“At the same time, we are carrying out a major national effort to advance creative and innovative solutions against explosive drones,” he added, after meeting with Defense Minister Israel Katz and IDF Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Eyal Zamir at the Kirya military headquarters in Tel Aviv.

A day earlier, Netanyahu ordered the IDF to “intensify blows” against the Iran-backed group amid incessant Hezbollah attacks despite the US-brokered ceasefire that is still officially in place.

Channel 12 reported that Zamir had been pressing forcefully to be allowed to take the fight to Hezbollah. Over the past two days, Katz had pushed his message with Netanyahu, who eventually gave the go-ahead.

Israel had been exercising restraint amid pressure from the US, which is trying to finalize a deal with Iran.

Washington approved Israeli plans to expand fighting against Hezbollah in the coming days, but warned Jerusalem against striking in Beirut amid concerns of hurting US talks with Iran on a deal, multiple Hebrew outlets reported Tuesday evening, citing Israeli officials.

US Ambassador Mike Huckabee updated the White House on Monday night on Israel’s intention to expand operations in Lebanon, and the American message in turn was “not to bring down buildings in Beirut,” according to a Channel 12 report.

A senior Israeli official told the network that “There is approval for targeted assassinations in Beirut if an operational opportunity presents itself.”

Senior Israeli officials similarly acknowledged to Channel 13: “We have freedom of action in southern Lebanon – less so in Beirut. We do not want to be perceived as undermining President Donald Trump’s agreement with Iran.”

However, an Israeli security official was cited by the Kan public broadcaster as saying that if operation plans remain limited to southern Lebanon, the IDF “will hurt Hezbollah – but it will not stop the explosive drones” attacks that were the cause for the planned intensification of fighting.

More...