Data Centers are shaping up to be a big issue in the next election, and the real leader of the Democratic Party is all over it:

This is one of those videos where a guy takes a Fox News bogeyman/woman and takes them to a conservative area to talk about issues. AOC is a good retail politician and she does a good job just listening. She and Bernie have introduced a federal, nationwide datacenter moratorium, which of course will go nowhere because this is an issue where the public is around 70/30 against (or at least 60/40), and the donors are 99/1 for it.

I think AOC is feeling her way towards a Presidential run. Speaking of possible Presidential contenders, Sepideh sent me this disqualifying clip of Gretchen Whitmer saying the quiet part out loud on an open mic:

Scott sent me this piece about Republicans and Democrats banding together to fight three data centers in a community 50 miles southwest of Chicago. As in the video with AOC, this is way beyond party politics — it’s existential. People’s water supplies are being ruined, blasting is causing cracks in foundations and in houses, and power bills are going up. AOC’s message is, let’s hit pause and figure out how to put these things in a way that respects everyone’s rights. You’re either with AOC or you’re part of the piranha party, nibbling away at people’s rights.

I listened to an interview with Phil Weiser, Colorado AG, who’s running for governor in the Democratic primary against Sen. Bennet. I’m voting for Weiser as the lesser of two evils, because Senate brain is a terminal illness and Bennet has a bad case of it. Still, Weiser’s answer about a data center moratorium was unsatisfying, to say the least. He said he wouldn’t sign a full moratorium because there are some instances like a coal mine closing in Craig, CO, which apparently is near a geothermal plant, and that plant could supply a datacenter, keeping jobs in the area. I’m really suspicious of these kinds of answers. Another way to go about it is to have a moratorium and an exception approval process that takes into account the needs of all stakeholders. That process would be managed by some kind of non-partisan board approved by the state legislature. We’ve had way, way too much prima donna vetoing behavior from Polis for me to accept Weiser’s response.

Well, another post about a no-brainer political issue that the establishment of the Democratic Party can’t or won’t champion. We have a long road to go before we have a responsive, progressive political party, if we ever do.