The front line in the fight over AI runs through Utah. In Box Elder County, a remote valley near the Great Salt Lake, residents are fighting a proposed AI data center, which would be one of the largest ever. Some 4,000 people filed formal objections over its water use. Developers pulled their application but say they plan to try again. Utah isn’t the only such battle. Across the country, data centers are hitting local resistance. In Northern Virginia, residents oppose new power lines and substations. In Florida, a massive project collapsed after local pushback. In rural America, landowners are rallying to stop projects they once would have welcomed. Even state lawmakers are getting nervous. Some now talk about outright bans on new data centers.   On the surface, residents are protesting the use of water, power, and land. But there have been thousands of data centers built in the past without much fanfare. Why are so many Americans suddenly so opposed to data centers in their area? Critics of these campaigns argue that this is the result of dark and even foreign money. Investor Kevin O’Leary has claimed these campaigns are funded by China, which stands to gain the most from a slowdown in AI development in the U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum recently said that these protests “are not organic and local. Some of this is foreign-sourced dark money” that used to be spent on climate change protests. This isn’t idle speculation. The American Energy Institute has found evidence that foreign sources (many in Europe) have spent some $39 million on the campaigns. Still, as a political fact, the local hostility to these data centers is real. And some of the complaints make sense. Large language models such as Grok, Claude, and ChatGPT are not just software. They need “compute,” that is, hardware, infrastructure, and energy. In other words, they need data centers and their prerequisites. Building and sustaining data centers requires large spaces, massive construction projects, and stacks and stacks of servers using advanced GPUs, which draw as much power as a small city. To stay cool—which they must—data centers need either water or cooling systems that use even more electricity. They raise concerns about noise and air pollution. Take just one of the examples above: electricity. Prices have climbed fast in recent years and data centers have played a role in this. The Department of Energy estimates “that data centers consumed about 4.4% of total U.S. electricity in 2023 and are expected to consume approximately 6.7 to 12% of total U.S. electricity by 2028.” Next, AI lacks the intuitive appeal of, say, farms, rockets, and car factories. It doesn’t help that many tech entrepreneurs speak of AI as a threat to all that is good and holy. “With artificial intelligence, we are summoning the demon,” Elon Musk said at an MIT conference way back in 2014. “You know all those stories where there’s the guy with the pentagram and the holy water and he’s like … yeah, he’s sure he can control the demon, [but] it doesn’t work out.” Finally, among conservatives at least, Big Tech companies such as Google and Meta (the parent company of Facebook), don’t exactly enjoy stellar reputations. They overwhelmingly support left-wing causes. They also targeted and censored conservatives and heterodox voices during the lockdowns. Is it any wonder that their sudden appeal to patriotism seems cynical? As Mike Cernovich put it on X: Facebook is firing Americans, hiring H-1B's, funding the far left, but if you don't want them to have an infinite data center, then you support China. That really is the slop being pushed right now, in some cases people are being paid to post it. https://t.co/O1N2sJ4Wd6— Cernovich (@Cernovich) May 18, 2026 Data centers are a concrete symbol of an industry that, in the mind of much of the public, is opaque, scary, and led by oligarchs who often seem hostile to everyday Americans. This makes them ideal targets for public anger. The Disastrous Data Center Bottleneck Alas, none of this changes the fact that a data center bottleneck is a looming disaster if we want to stay ahead of the Chinese Communist Party. Today, the U.S. leads the world in artificial intelligence and in compute. The U.S. has eight times more capacity than any other country. American spending on data centers was about $425 billion in 2025. Some $52 billion was spent just on construction. And still, demand is expected to triple between now and 2030. China is behind the U.S., but it has far fewer local veto points. If our rival in the Far East needs more land or water, it takes it. If it needs more electricity, it can build another coal-fired power plant without worrying much about local critics or fussy environmentalists. Separation of power, local control, and public input distinguish us from the one-party autocracy in China. We don’t want to lose the very things that make our country better than China. If we limit our own ability to train and deploy advanced AI, however, we could quickly lose our edge and even our status as the unique rival to Chinese hegemony. AI is not a quirky side gig of lefties clustered on the east and west coasts. It is the most powerful general-purpose technology of our age—perhaps of any age. Like electrification, internal combustion engines, and computers, it will touch every other industry and sector. And right now, it is advancing so quickly that staying even six months ahead of China could prove decisive. If the U.S. falls behind in the AI race, it will probably not be because we lacked the expertise or the energy resources. It could be because, in 2026, we could not find a way to preserve the virtues of our constitutional republic while opening the data center bottleneck.

Republican Rep. Thomas Massie of Kentucky lost to a primary challenger backed by President Donald Trump on Tuesday, denying the libertarian rebel an eighth term in Congress and reaffirming the president’s dominance of the Republican Party. The Associated Press declared Ed Gallrein the victor shortly before 8 p.m. when he held an almost eight-point lead over the incumbent. Massie was first elected to represent his northern Kentucky district in 2012 at the height of the Tea Party movement and conservative discontent with President Barack Obama’s fiscal policy. The Kentucky lawmaker has distinguished himself as a stubborn, libertarian figure in Congress, consistently voting against large spending packages and challenging multiple administrations’ authority to conduct military operations. During the second Trump administration, Massie has bucked the party line in defiance of Trump on key votes.  He voted against the July 2025 “big, beautiful bill” which extended Trump’s 2017 tax cuts, arguing it would worsen budget deficits. Kentucky Republican Rep. Thomas Massie pushed back on criticism from President Trump and GOP leadership ahead of a costly and closely watched primary against former Navy SEAL Ed Gallrein, telling CBS News’ @edokeefe the race has become a referendum on party loyalty, foreign… pic.twitter.com/8ebYn3t7Ob— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 19, 2026  Massie has also voted to deprive Trump of the emergency authority he previously used to impose tariffs and has introduced resolutions challenging Trump’s use of force against Venezuela and Iran. He butted heads with Trump as the author and principal Republican advocate of the Epstein Files Transparency Act, legislation which compelled the Department of Justice to release its files on now-deceased sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Trump was initially opposed to releasing the files before ultimately calling for the passage of the legislation and signing the bill into law after Congress approved it almost unanimoulsy. Trump endorsed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, in October 2025, and rallied with him in March 2026 in Hebron, Kentucky. Massie’s primary came on the heels of Trump targeting several Republicans he believes slighted him in the past.  In early May, the majority of the Indiana state senators who rejected Trump-backed redistricting lost their primaries.  More recently, on May 16, Sen. Bill Cassidy, R-La., the last remaining U.S. senator who voted to convict Trump in his second impeachment trial, came in third place in his primary.  Just hours before polls closed in Kentucky, Trump endorsed Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton in his primary challenge against incumbent Republican Sen. John Cornyn, saying Cornyn “was not supportive of me when times were tough.” Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth criticizes Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) at rally for his challenger, Ed Gallrein: "President Trump does not need more people in Washington who are trying to make a point, especially from his own party." pic.twitter.com/cBgAReZ8fi— CSPAN (@cspan) May 18, 2026 Cornyn previously expressed skepticism about Trump running in 2024. Massie’s 2026 House primary was the most expensive in American history, with over $32 million spent on ads. On Monday, Secretary of War Pete Hegseth campaigned on Gallrein’s behalf against Massie. White House Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Stephen Miller also urged Kentucky voters to oppose Massie. There were a few Republicans who campaigned for the incumbent.  Republican Reps. Lauren Boebert of Colorado, Victoria Spartz of Indiana, and Warren Davidson of Ohio all campaigned in Kentucky for Massie.  All were relatively immune from political consequences for their decision, as Davidson and Spartz had already won their primaries and the Colorado filing deadline had already passed, protecting Boebert from a primary challenge. Trump called on Saturday for a primary challenger to take on Boebert, saying he would then withdraw his endorsement from the representative, whom he called “weak minded.” Yes, I saw the President’s post. No, I’m not mad or offended. I knew the risks when I agreed to stand by my friend Thomas Massie. I was, and will be, America First, America Always, and MAGA. Onward — Lauren Boebert (@laurenboebert) May 16, 2026 Boebert stated on X that she was “not mad or offended” and that she remains “America First, America Always, and MAGA.” The primary race quickly turned into a debate over whether Massie’s record in the House is genuinely conservative or not. Massie told The Daily Signal in a statement before primary day, “I will win this race because my constituents know I am consistently America First. I backed the SAVE Act, voted to secure the border by funding the wall and DHS, and I will never stop fighting to drain the Swamp. Whether on the campaign trail or in Congress, I don’t hide from my record, I show up, I explain my votes, and I answer directly to the people I represent.” However the opposing campaign had a different view, highlighting Massie’s rifts with the president, as well as Trump’s  endorsement of Gallrein. Gallrein senior adviser Tim Murtaugh told The Daily Signal in a statement, “President Trump has given Ed Gallrein his strongest endorsement in this race while Thomas Massie has made it his business to stick his finger in the president’s eye at every opportunity. Massie has aggressively tried to derail the America First agenda, voted against major legislative priorities of the administration, speaks about Iran like he wants the mullahs to win, and has become The New York Times’ favorite Republican.” Murtaugh added, “It is far too late for Massie to try to return to the fold now and it’s a pity that he’s chosen to end his career this way. … The only person Thomas Massie serves is Thomas Massie.” In the closing act of the campaign, Massie argued he was being targeted by donors offended by his opposition to foreign aid to Israel, whom he referred to as “the Israeli lobby.” Related PostsMassie Primary to Test His Popularity, Trump’s EndorsementSoon, the Republican Party will hold a critical primary that could demonstrate the power of President Donald Trump’s endorsement. On May 19, Republicans in Kentucky’s 4th Congressional District will decide whether they want Rep. Thomas Massie—who frequently bucks the party line—to remain in Congress. Massie, a Republican with a stubborn libertarian streak, was one of…Republican Sen. Cassidy, Who Supported Trump Impeachment, Loses Re-Election BidMay 16 (Reuters) — Two-term Republican U.S. Senator Bill Cassidy lost his bid for re-election in Louisiana’s primary on Saturday, as Trump-backed challenger Julia Letlow and state Treasurer John Fleming advanced to a June runoff to choose the party’s nominee after a closely fought three-way battle. Cassidy, a physician who first earned the president’s ire by…Massie’s Primary Race Breaks Spending RecordsRep. Thomas Massie’s, R-Ky., reelection bid on May 19 has become the most expensive Republican primary in history, with more than $32 million spent on advertising, as the congressman faces criticism over his remarks against the United States’ involvement in Israel. “I’m the main event,” Massie told MS NOW at the U.S. Capitol last week….

The Senate GOP is taking the next steps to pass legislation to fully fund the Department of Homeland Security this week. Thanks to pro-family GOP senators, key legislation to protect children will be included in the long-awaited Reconciliation 2.0. Senate Majority Leader John Thune announced that the Secure America Act will “hopefully” be voted on this week. The bill to fund Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection passed out of the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee Tuesday and included legislation pushed by Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., and Tim Tebow, to protect the exploitation of children online. “This will be a tremendous step forward to be able to do something very tangible and very immediate to help children who have been harmed in the worst possible way by the online world,” Hawley said in a press release. Proud to partner with a faithful Christ follower like @TimTebow as we fight to rescue trafficked kids. Our provision to do so just passed committee. Let’s get this done pic.twitter.com/S27rYVNtgP— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) May 19, 2026 Committee member Hawley saw his continued advocacy for the Renewed Hope Act pay off. The Renewed Hope Act of 2026, originally introduced in January by Rep. Laurel Lee, R-Fla., has been championed by Hawley in the Senate. The language in the Secure America Act, Rec. 2.0, will provide DHS with a “generational investment” to hire 200 child exploitation investigators and forensic analysts. The department currently has funding for only seven roles to investigate the hundreds of thousands of cases in which children are in danger online. Earlier this year, Hawley hosted Tebow, the former NFL football player and founder of the Tim Tebow Foundation, to testify before Congress on the urgent need to pass the Renewed Hope Act and provide adequate resources. “Our country’s most precious and vulnerable lives have been forgotten. Every day, these children lose hope, and it’s not the fault of law enforcement that these children wait. They need more resources, plain and simple,” Tebow told the Daily Signal ahead of the March hearing. EXCLUSIVE: @TimTebow to Expose Child Trafficking Crisis in Capitol Hill Testimony Tim Tebow, NCAA football legend, broadcaster, and philanthropist, will be on Capitol Hill Tuesday afternoon testifying in front of the Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and…— Virginia Grace McKinnon (@virginiagmck) March 3, 2026 Tebow testified that in less than a year, 338,000 unique IP addresses downloaded or shared child-rape images portraying nearly 90,000 unidentified children in the United States. Because of the lack of funding, many of these cases go uninvestigated or unsolved. Led by Homeland Security Investigations under DHS, the bill provides $108.5 million to hire the new staff. Specifically, the bill provides for 40 forensic analysts and 30 child exploitation investigators at the Victim Identification Laboratory within the Child Exploitation Investigations Unit, as well as 130 additional analysts and investigators. It also establishes a victim identification training program for federal, state, and local law enforcement to better coordinate efforts. “This legislation gives our nation the opportunity to build a stronger rescue team of analysts and investigators so that children who are suffering can be identified and protected,” Tebow continued in his March comment. Because of Democrats’ historic temper tantrum, we will be funding Border Patrol and ICE for the full remainder of President Trump’s term.We are going to pass the Secure America Act, and with it, we are going to end this conversation about defunding the police. pic.twitter.com/jXazSLdWMI— Leader John Thune (@LeaderJohnThune) May 19, 2026 “This week we’re going to vote on the Secure America Act, which is a piece of legislation that will fund ICE and CBP not only for this year but through the entirety of the Trump administration,” Thune told reporters. Chairman Rand Paul said the committee’s markup of the bill, along with back-and-forth communication with the Senate parliamentarian, included 57 amendments to the final bill and was passed by an 8-5 vote. The DHS funding bill, which Thune referred to as the Secure America Act, will allocate nearly $23 billion to fund ICE and CBP. This is down roughly $50 billion from the first proposal package presented by the Senate Homeland Security and Judiciary committees, which included $1 billion for the security project at the White House East Wing.

These are the remarks Tyler O’Neil plans to deliver before the House Judiciary Committee in his opening statement Wednesday morning. The text may change between publication now and the testimony then. Chairman [Jim] Jordan, Ranking Member [Jamie] Raskin, members of the committee, I am honored to testify before you today. I will argue that the Southern Poverty Law Center does not merely track hate—it systematically inflates it, profits from it, and, according to a federal indictment, may even have helped create it. The first thing to know about the SPLC is that it has nothing to do with poverty. The “Poverty Palace” has an endowment of $822 million. That’s more than three times the assets of the national YMCA, and almost twice the sum of Planned Parenthood. That’s why former employees have suggested mocking mottos for the SPLC, such as “Making Hate Pay.” How did the SPLC become so wealthy? Co-founder Morris Dees set up a lucrative fundraising engine by suing the Ku Klux Klan into bankruptcy. When the SPLC ran out of grand dragons to slay, the center needed to find more “hate” to justify the fundraising. It has a financial incentive to juice the numbers. The SPLC began to publish a “hate map” that plots mainstream conservative and Christian groups alongside Klan chapters. The map includes Moms for Liberty, PragerU, Turning Point USA, and even Focus on the Family. The SPLC says the map reveals the “infrastructure upholding white supremacy.” The “hate map” kills two birds with one stone: it silences conservative dissent from the SPLC’s agenda, and it exaggerates “hate” to keep the money flowing. The map also includes groups that barely exist, like a Confederate memorabilia shop and a convent. In 2023, I analyzed the map and found that it exaggerated hate by at least 267% by including mainstream conservatives, double-counting groups, and mentioning defunct organizations. Given this track record, is it really so far-fetched to think the SPLC might be propping up some of the very white supremacist groups it claims it exists to oppose? A federal grand jury indicted the SPLC on fraud charges because it had funneled $3 million to members of the Klan. The SPLC didn’t deny the payments but said it was funding “informants” who would tip the center off to violent threats before they happen. But that’s not what happened in Charlottesville in 2017. According to the indictment, the SPLC paid an organizer—and directed this person’s “racist postings.” This so-called informant didn’t prevent Charlottesville from happening. In fact, the indictment suggests the SPLC made Charlottesville larger than it otherwise would have been. After Charlottesville, the SPLC’s annual fundraising doubled. Social media companies volunteered to start silencing hate groups. CNN plastered the hate map on its website. Charlottesville was a payday for the SPLC, and this so-called informant may have been the SPLC’s most cunning investment. Of course, if it became known that the SPLC had paid a Charlottesville organizer, that would be a massive scandal. No wonder the SPLC allegedly lied to a bank, setting up shell companies to fund these “informants.” Why does this matter? SPLC staff have briefed DOJ prosecutors. Big Tech companies have used the SPLC to blacklist conservative nonprofits. School districts across the country have adopted the SPLC’s curriculum. Hundreds of companies systematically exclude conservatives from their charity programs because of the SPLC. The SPLC also has offshoots that engage in similar efforts against conservatives. The Change the Terms coalition banded together to pressure Big Tech to deplatform conservatives, and former SPLC staff have founded the Global Project Against Hate and Extremism. If an organization can inflate threats, influence federal policy, and conceal its role in allegedly fueling the very extremism it condemns, then Congress has a duty to investigate it and its offshoots.

Georgia endured a chaotic primary day, as a court intervened to resolve a dispute over which election officials would have access to the state’s election reporting center, which some call the “bunker.” Three Georgia candidates asked a state court for an emergency motion requiring Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger to allow State Election Board members to be present to observe statewide election night results aggregation. This occurs at an emergency operations center, where the totals are uploaded to Georgia’s election reporting system. Actual ballots are not counted at the center. Raffensperger is himself a candidate for governor in the Republican primary. Fulton County Superior Court Judge Ural Glanville imposed a temporary restraining order requiring Raffensperger to allow the board members access to observe the election results aggregation, according to the plaintiffs. BREAKING: We have secured a TRO from Chief Judge Glanville.Bipartisan members of the State Election Board and poll watchers WILL be allowed inside Secretary Raffensperger’s “bunker” to observe tonight’s process.Transparency wins. The people of Georgia deserve honest,… pic.twitter.com/BVOLnrt9Ic— Senator Greg Dolezal (@DolezalForGA) May 19, 2026 However, later that same day, he rescinded the order, writing that plaintiffs did not follow the state’s law requiring them to notify the attorney general’s office of their legal challenge involving a state official. Attorney General Chris Carr is also a Republican candidate for governor. Judge Glanville wrote in a one-page opinion: “This matter comes before the Court on the Order Granting Temporary Restraining Order (the ‘TRO’) entered this morning in this matter after an ex parte hearing. Because Petitioners did not comply with O.C.G.A. § 9-10-2 when seeking expedited injunctive relief against Respondent in his official capacity, the TRO is legally and procedurally void. Accordingly, the TRO is hereby voided, vacated, and dissolved.” The plaintiffs who filed the legal action on Monday were 11th District U.S. congressional candidate Chris Mora; state Sen. Greg Dolezal, who is running for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor; and Keli Gambrill, a Cobb County Commission candidate. After the judge’s initial order, Dolezal posted on X, “Bipartisan members of the State Election Board and poll watchers WILL be allowed inside Secretary Raffensperger’s ‘bunker’ to observe tonight’s process.” In a statement to 11Alive News Monday, before either ruling, Raffensperger said, “The real fight to safeguard the ballot box happens at the local level — inside county election offices and tabulation centers across Georgia.” The statement was from the Raffensperger campaign, not the secretary of state’s office. “But facts clearly aren’t getting in the way of Dolezal’s desperate search for press attention and votes. So buckle up, Greg,” Raffensperger continued. “This isn’t my first rodeo. You are about to join Stacey Abrams, Joe Biden, and the New Georgia Project on the long list of people who sued me and lost.”