Yes, Honorables. Data Centers Are A BFD. Ignore at your own peril:
The Democratic sweep of gubernatorial races in Virginia and New Jersey and public service commissioner races in Georgia offers an early glimpse of what could be a sleeper issue in the 2026 midterm elections: the politics of AI infrastructure.
In Virginia, Governor-elect Abigail Spanberger made data centers’ outsize energy demands one of her campaign planks, calling on tech companies to pay their “fair share” to strengthen the grid. In New Jersey, Mikie Sherrill won the governorship championing, among other issues, legislation that would require data centers to help fund grid modernization and renewable energy investments. And in Georgia, Democrats Alicia Johnson and Peter Hubbard unseated incumbent Republicans on the Public Service Commission, which sets utility rates, after Hubbard complained that big tech companies were being offered “sweetheart deals,” while residents paid much higher rates for electricity.
These wins underscore a striking new reality—that the physical infrastructure of the AI boom isn’t just transforming technology or the economy. As I reported recently, massive AI data centers are also quietly reshaping local and state politics—turning once-niche zoning fights into national debates over the future of energy.
I know that Janet Kilpatrick, who has almost always been on the side of EE-VIL, doesn’t give a shit. But she’s retiring. Perhaps the remaining slow learners on NCC Council might consider this: Those who want to give carte blanche to these data centers invariably lose.
Even Rethugs Are Saying It Out Loud–Hegseth is a war criminal:
Lawmakers from both parties raised alarms Sunday that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth may have committed a war crime following a report that he ordered a follow-on attack to kill survivors of a boat strike in September.
The Washington Post reported last week that Hegseth authorized a highly unusual strike to kill all survivors of one of the Trump administration’s attacks in recent months on boats allegedly carrying drugs in international waters. POLITICO has not independently verified the Post’s reporting.
While skeptical to concede that the Washington Post’s reporting may be accurate, Republicans also raised concern that Hegseth’s orders could have been illegal if they played out as reported.
Bipartisan leadership of the Armed Services Committees in both chambers vowed to probe the matter, with Sens. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.) promising “vigorous oversight to determine the facts related to these circumstances” on Friday.
Rep. Mike Turner (R-Ohio) told Cordes on Sunday that “if that occurred, that would be very serious, and I agree that would be an illegal act,” and Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said on ABC’s “This Week” that “if it was as if the article said, that is a violation of the law of war.”
Hmmm, is Trump looking to put some distance between himself and Hegseth?:
President Donald Trump said Sunday that he has “great confidence” that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth did not give a spoken order to kill all crew members aboard a vessel suspected of smuggling drugs in the Caribbean Sea in September.
Trump said Hegseth told him “he did not say that, and I believe him, 100 percent.”
Trump said he would look into the issue. “I wouldn’t have wanted that. Not a second strike. The first strike was very lethal.
It was fine,” the president told reporters.
Kids, we know that Trump would’ve wanted to kill all the crew members. He’s Trump. For him to put even a little distance between himself and Hegseth suggests, at least to me, that there’s more trouble in Casa Bellicosa, Carl Hiaasen’s name for Mar-A-Lago:
Happily for Hiaasen, and for his readers, Florida has since handed him targets even bigger. His latest novel, “Squeeze Me,” pairs an author who knows every grift, con and critter in the Sunshine State with some of its finest specimens. He has taken note that Palm Beach now houses a reality TV star who is also a president, along with his country club and his wealthy loyalists, one of whom is promptly swallowed by a Burmese python as an amuse-bouche for readers. Look at yourself. If you are wearing a MAGA anything, you won’t like this book.
The Palm Beach in these pages is painted as a warped society page’s worth of funny names (“the McMarmots”), sources of ill-gotten gain (aerosols) and gala-worthy organizations. With “the IBS Wellness Foundation, a group globally committed to defeating Irritable Bowel Syndrome,” the “globally” and “defeating” give the organization its particular eau de Hiaasen. So too do a smattering of Warren Zevon lyrics in the prose, and the way a woozy Kiki Pew Fitzsimmons totters out of the IBS gala and into a “spleen-shaped” pond, never to be seen undigested again.
One of the funniest books I’ve ever read. But I digress.
Yes, He’s Unfit To Serve As President. So obvious, yet so ignored:
The President of the United States increasingly resembles a decaying, crotchety old man wrestling not with his grievances or enemies, but with the betrayal of time and a mental erosion preventing any impulse control.
The New York Times recently reported what all of us with a functioning optic nerve have seen: Donald J. Trump, the once bombastic showman and snake oil salesman, has shrunk his public schedule and limited his appearances to a tight mid-day window.
Whereas previous U.S. Presidents embraced the burdens of office at dawn, Trump appears only after most of the nation has eaten lunch.
And when Trump does appear, reporters and staff keep seeing moments that look like fatigue overtaking leadership vigilance, the sort of slump that in most offices would prompt a supervisor to ask whether the employee needed time off or a medical check.
But instead of addressing concerns like an adult, the President keeps raging like a tyrannical toddler. He has denounced the reporting as unfair, sneered at journalists, and bellowed about his “perfect” tests — as if the nation were comprised only of other gullible children distracted by shiny objects.
Trump’s stain on our nation is no longer just financial corruption and governing incompetence. He is now a leader who lashes out with the reflexive hostility of a man in a dementia ward, cornered by his own limitations.
25th Amendment? The Trump cabinet won’t go there. But the rest of us should.
Julianne Murray Following In The Footsteps Of–Val Longhurst? She traveled a lot and left the Delaware Rethuglican Party in debt.
Delaware’s long-struggling Republican Party faces a money problem just as it approaches a consequential midterm election year.
The state party reported last month that its federal bank account held a balance of negative $3,819 – the fourth month in a row it sat in the red.
It is not immediately clear how the party can maintain an overdrawn account for so many months, nor is it known how much money the party may hold in any other account. In comparison, the Delaware Democratic State Committee held more than $15,000, according to its most recent campaign finance report. .
State GOP officials did not respond to requests to comment for this story.
What is known is that the depletion of its federal account comes amid a transition period for a party that seeks to regain relevance in a state long controlled by Democrats.
It also comes a year after the party took in a hefty campaign season haul that included tens of thousands of dollars earned for serving as a pass-through entity for a super PAC backing President Donald Trump.
After the haul, the party spent heavily on payments to consultants, on cash transfers to certain general election candidates, and on hotels and events, including a single $54,000 payment to the hotel chain Homewood Suites, according to federal filings.
Precise details of the spending is not shown on the filings, but social media posts show that then-chair Julianne Murray traveled widely last year for Republican events in Nevada, Arizona, Wisconsin, Georgia and Washington, D.C.
No wonder Trump likes her. Spending Other People’s Money is his super-power. And perhaps his most-perfected grift.
BTW, who are ‘Red Vigiant LLC’ and Ayonne ‘Nick’ Miles? You’ll have to read Karl Baker’s article to find out, but it’s–intriguing.
BTWBTW, Karl Baker would be my choice for Inspector General. An investigative reporter who digs deep.
What do you want to talk about?
Josh Marshall wrote about the AI backlash the other day.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/ai-populism-and-the-centibillionaire-shangri-la
Alina Habba Disqualified:
https://meidasnews.com/news/unanimous-appellate-court-upholds-disqualifying-alina-habba-as-u-s-attorney
“A federal judge has already determined that Habba has been serving unlawfully since her interim appointment, made by President Donald Trump, expired in July. Although she remained in the position, the administration’s appeal faces long odds as courts around the country hand down similar rulings.
Now, this morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit unanimously reaffirmed that Habba is disqualified from serving as acting U.S. attorney, marking the first appellate decision on the administration’s controversial approach to interim federal prosecutor appointments, and the result was a 3–0 setback for Trump.”
This morning, the 3rd Circuit ruled that Habba was not only disqualified as acting U.S. Attorney, but she was also disqualified as serving as the U.S. Attorney.
“Delaware’s long-struggling Republican Party faces a money problem”
Ah yes, the famously “fiscally responsible” Republicans.
Of course Murray fattened herself at the buffet she managed. That’s the beauty of modern Republicans. Their principal characteristics are incompetence and greed. Even though they are badly motivated, it is a redeeming grace that they are largely self-defeating.