Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Science grab bag: Dinosaurs


Think we already know everything about dinosaurs?  Think again.  Ellie Ng (INDEPENDENT) reports:

A new species of dinosaur has been discovered from a fossil found on the Isle of Wight which has been “overlooked” for study for more than a century, researchers said.

The dinosaur – a long-clawed predator the size of a large tiger – is the first of a group of two-legged carnivores called megaraptorans to be found in Europe, according to the research team led by University College London (UCL).

The fossil from which the discovery was made is a part of a skull which was acquired by the Natural History Museum in 1924.

This new species of megaraptorans, which were closely related to tyrannosaurs including Tyrannosaurus rex, lived in the UK in the early cretaceous period around 120 million years ago.

It has been named Invictibellatrix amberina, with the former meaning “unconquered female warrior”.


For about forty years, the argument over whether Tyrannosaurus rex ran hot or ran cold was conducted entirely without a thermometer. That is the strange part. Everyone had an opinion, and the opinions were fierce, and the whole thing rested on inference: the shape of the bones, the speed of growth rings, the latitudes where the fossils turned up, the posture, the guesswork about how fast a nine-tonne animal could move without cooking itself. Nobody had a number. Nobody thought a number was possible, because the animal has been dead for 66 million years and you cannot put a probe into something that is not there.

A team based mostly at UCLA now has the number. They took a dental drill to fossilised tooth enamel and came back with 36 degrees Celsius, about 97 Fahrenheit. That is, give or take a fraction, a human being. It is the temperature of the person reading this.

The measurement belongs to a specific animal with a name. Thomas is the most complete tyrannosaur skeleton held by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, pulled out of the Hell Creek Formation in Montana a little over two decades ago. He is a museum showpiece, which is exactly why this was so difficult. You do not get to walk into an institution and grind up a piece of a specimen like that because you have a hypothesis. The permission is the hard part, and the permission is where the story actually begins.

Staying with T-Rex, Shivali Best (DAILY MAIL) reports on their small arms:

It's a question that has baffled scientists for decades: why did Tyrannosaurus rex have such tiny arms?

The 45ft dinosaur had arms measuring just three feet long – the equivalent of a 6ft human with five–inch arms.

However, despite decades of research, scientists have remained clueless as to why this is the case. 

Now, researchers from University College London believe they've solved the mystery. 

They claim that the evolution of tiny arms was likely driven by the development of strong, powerful heads. 

'Everyone knows the T. rex had tiny arms but other giant theropod dinosaurs also evolved relatively small forelimbs. The Carnotaurus had ridiculously tiny arms, smaller than the T. rex,' Charlie Roger Scherer, lead author of the study.

'We sought to understand what was driving this change and found a strong relationship between short arms and large, powerfully built heads.

'The head took over from the arms as the method of attack. It's a case of "use it or lose it" – the arms are no longer useful and reduce in size over time.' 



"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS): 

Wednesday, October 14, 2026.  Chump's Desperation Tour continues as polls demonstrate the American people feel Chump doesn't give a damn about them and only cares about enriching himself, Chump fires the US Ambassador to Greece but keeps Priss Pot Hegseth, his attacks on the safety net with his 'Big Beautiful Bill' are being felt around the country, and much more





Chump continues his Desperation Tour.  Not content to drag his own numbers down, he's determined to tank Republicans running for Congress. Stephen Silver (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) observes:

The 2026 midterm elections are just three weeks away and are shaping up to be a bloodbath for President Donald Trump’s Republican Party, thanks to the unpopularity of the president himself, as well as the Iran War and the still-high cost of living, including high gas prices.

It’s not a great state of affairs for the president, who won the election to return to office two years ago, largely because of the inflationary environment during the Biden years.
According to a CNN report on Monday, the midterm election has, on the Republican side, “turned into a triage operation,” with the GOP moving to defend seats, including in red states, that they thought were relatively safe until recently.

The report added that the president's party is increasingly fearful it will lose its Senate majority and the House of Representatives.

CNN also said that while Republicans have pushed Trump to travel more in recent months to support candidates, they now worry the president is so unpopular that such travel might hurt the candidates he’s coming to support.

“Trump is dragging the party down,” one House Republican, who did not share their name, told CNN.





He asked the voters to make the election about him.  And they have.  Mike Hills (BBC NEWS) explains:

One of the reasons the opposition Democrats have a chance to take back Congress is the president's low approval rating, which is a good indicator for how well his party could perform.

He began his second term as president with an approval rating of just over 50%, according to polling resource website Silver Bulletin, but it quickly fell into the 40s.

It was hovering around 42% when Trump decided to launch air strikes with Israel against Iran at the end of February this year but it fell below 40% shortly afterwards. It is currently sitting at about 37%.

Eight years ago, Trump's approval rating was significantly higher at this point in his first term, at 43%. Joe Biden's at the same point in his term was at 40%. In both cases, the sitting president lost control of the House in the midterms but kept hold of the Senate.

But Trump's poor ratings help explain why Democrats are hopeful of winning both chambers of Congress and why they are setting their sights on states that Republicans have won consistently in recent years.




And Chump does not even pretend to care about the needs and concerns of average Americans.  ALJAZEERA and AP note: 

Most US adults believe President Donald Trump has placed his personal financial interests and those of his inner circle ahead of the country’s since returning to the White House in 2025, according to a new nationwide poll.

The poll, conducted by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and released on Tuesday, suggests that public perception of the Republican president leans heavily critical: Over half of surveyed adults view Trump’s second term as self-serving by investing in his own business and commercial pursuits “a lot”. Roughly one quarter believe he focuses on national interests, but only 11 percent feel Trump represents regular Americans. Fifty-five percent of Republicans surveyed said that Trump has prioritised his personal business interests “a lot” or “some”.

Half of the respondents report that Trump has placed zero priority on people “like them”.

Stephanie Gauthier (OBOXMA) notes, "With the November 3 midterms just weeks away, Donald Trump is confronting extraordinary polling numbers as frustration over affordability intensifies. A new AP-NORC survey finds 82% of Americans disapprove of his handling of the cost of living, while only 17% approve."  And that's reason enough for Republican candidates to distance themselves from him.  Travis Gettys (RAW STORY) reports:

National Republicans are pulling out of a handful of House races less than a month before the midterms, abandoning two sitting GOP lawmakers as the party tries to keep its losses from spreading.
Super PACs aligned with President Donald Trump and House GOP leadership canceled all remaining ad reservations over the weekend for Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) and Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-IA), three people with direct knowledge of the plans told the New York Times, and internal Republican polling had shown both incumbents’ chances fading.
It’s the first time this cycle that national GOP groups have cut loose their own incumbents, following last week’s decision to pull money from Nebraska’s open seat, held by retiring Rep. Don Bacon. Taken together, Republicans have effectively surrendered three districts they currently control, even after an aggressive redistricting campaign meant to pad the party’s narrow House majority.

WRAL NEWS notes, "Democrat Roy Cooper leads Republican Michael Whatley by a wide margin in the race to claim North Carolina’s open U.S. Senate seat as voters sour on President Donald Trump, a new WRAL/WSOC Poll shows. Whatley, a longtime Republican Party insider, was endorsed by Trump and has themed his campaign largely around delivering for Trump’s agenda if elected to the U.S. Senate. He has consistently trailed Cooper, the former governor, in polls this year. The new poll, released Tuesday, shows a continuation of that trend."  Luciana Perez Uribe Guinassi (RALEIGH NEWS & OBSERVER) notes, "Democrats once again lead North Carolina in voter registration. That’s an about-face from January 2026, when, for the first time in North Carolina history, registered Republicans outnumbered registered Democrats by about 2,000 people. That came a couple of months before the March 3 primary. As of Saturday, there are 490 more registered Democrats than Republicans in North Carolina - out of nearly 7.8 million registered voters."



Americans know Chump's in it for Chump.  They see it.  Marco Margaritoff (HUFFINGTON POST) explains:

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe that President Donald Trump has engaged in illegal or unethical activity to profit from his presidency, according to a new poll released Tuesday from The Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

“Most Americans say President Trump has prioritized his personal financial interests and the interests of people close to him since taking office again in 2025,” the AP-NORC article states in its introduction. “Far fewer say he has prioritized the country as a whole or people like them.”

And this is a reason he has lost support.  Even within his own party.  Frank Yemi notes:


A Republican mayor in California is saying he intends to vote for Democrats in next month's midterms, warning that people are starting to question their support for President Trump.

Victor Martinez, the mayor of Mendota in the San Joaquin Valley, is still a registered Republican but told the Financial Times he intends to support Democrats in the next election.

"I think a lot of people are waking up," Martinez, who was born in El Salvador, told the paper. "They're really voting for what's right and what needs to happen."

His decision comes as Trump's position with Latino voters is up for a test following the gains that helped get him back in the White House in 2024.

The Financial Times reports that some Hispanic voters are growing disillusioned with the rising cost of fuel, the cuts to social programs and the administration's hardline approach to immigration.


The voting bloc helped deliver President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory, sending him to the White House for a second term. Republicans in Texas also saw gains that year, picking up two seats in historically Democratic districts in South Texas.
Halfway through Trump’s term, some Latino voters are rethinking their presidential pick, polling shows. This year’s midterm offers the first opportunity to express that disappointment with their votes, even if the president isn’t on the ballot himself.

Midterms are historically tricky for the party in control of the White House, and this year - when Texas is on pace to have the tightest races it has seen in years - Hispanic Texans have emerged as a key vote to win over.

“The Hispanic vote is going to be the determinate vote,” said Daniel Alegre, CEO of Spanish-language media company TelevisaUnivision. “It is the true swing vote that is still persuadable.”


Just a few weeks from the end of the 2026 midterm elections, there are all sorts of variables that could affect the outcome on the margins. There remain many races for House, Senate and governorships that are very close. Polling errors could be painting an unduly rosy picture of Democratic prospects. Late ad blitzes or candidate debates may tilt the balance here and there. “October surprises” remain a possibility, or even a “November surprise” by way of Trump administration efforts to suppress or intimidate voters.
But the basic national dynamics of this election seem very clear. Midterms are always to a considerable extent referenda on the job performance and character of whoever occupies the White House. In Donald Trump, we have a highly controversial president who is the dominant personality of our era, with a record that that is drawing terrible reviews from the public. His current job approval ratio per the Real Clear Politics polling averages is 38.1 percent approval and 59.5 percent disapproval. Presidents with this level of unpopularity almost always post big midterm losses. But he also has a virtually unshakable hard core of supporters. As a party Democrats have made their campaign a consistent frontal assault on Trump’s most vulnerable point–his poor record on, and his contemptuous disinterest in, high and rising living costs — with important sub-themes stressing the corruption that has flourished in his administration and deploring his war of choice against Iran. For their part, Republicans have mostly focused on energizing Trump’s most loyal supporters and maximizing their turnout, while trying to get more skeptical voters to think about their misgivings towards the opposition.
Let’s be clear about one thing: Trump’s energize-the-base tactics aren’t going to win the midterms. These voters are already energized. Yes, slightly increasing their turnout can help staunch the bleeding and keep down Democratic gains in deep-red territory. But even if the president gets them whipped up into a frenzy, there aren’t enough of them to overwhelm super-energized Democrats plus the vast and largely alienated ranks of swing voters who don’t like Trump’s economy or Trump’s war, and are generally tired of his act.




As Chump flits around the country talking about how much he loves this man's rear end or that man's thighs, as he insists that gas prices are lower, as he claims that "affordability" is a hoax and an invented word by the Democrats (despite affordability dating back in this country to the start of the 20th century), he gives listeners even less reason to believe him.  Matt Egan (CNN) reports: 

From $4 gas and 7% mortgage rates to surging airfares, the Iran war is significantly raising the cost of living for inflation-weary consumers ahead of the midterm elections.

The conflict has cost US consumers about $265 billion since it started in late February, according to estimates from Mark Zandi, chief economist at Moody’s Analytics. That equates to about $2,000 in higher costs for the average American household.

“Many Americans have rightly connected the dots between the Iran War and the painfully high cost of living and thus want the war to end,” Zandi told CNN on Tuesday.

Not only have consumer prices increased, but paychecks are not keeping up.

Wage growth slowed in September to a five-year low. Real wages, adjusted for inflation, have declined almost every month since the Iran war started, prompting some consumers to dip into savings and rely on credit cards to get by.




Chump's administration is a plethora of unqualified officials.  Priss Pot Hegseth may be the most unqualified.  His current asinine notion is that we need to live stream the execution of a prisoner. 



The daughter of one of the victims of the Fort Hood terror attack slammed plans by Secretary of War Pete Hegseth to livestream the perpetrator’s public execution.

Keely Cahill Vanacker’s father, Michael Cahill, was one of 13 people shot dead by radical Islamist Nidal Malik Hasan, whose execution by firing squad is set to be broadcast live on Dec. 3.

“I think that is absolutely the worst thing you could do. I think that this has nothing to do with justice,” Vanacker said of Hegseth’s plan, speaking to CNN on Monday.
Vanacker — who grimly described it as turning “tragedy” into “entertainment” — said she learned of the move from her son, who found out from an Instagram reel.

“I can’t imagine, with social media, how horrific it would be and how widespread it would be. It is not something you could just get away from,” she said, adding that this would not bring “closure” to the families.



But despite one embarrassment after another, Chump keeps Hegseth in place.  THE WEEK argues that Priss Pot is too similar to Chump for Chump to quit him. 

But this week, the country learned that Chump could quit Kimberly Guilfoyle and he did yesterday.  Joshua Feldstein (THE HILL) reports: 

The scandal surrounding Kimberly Guilfoyle, U.S. ambassador to Greece, came to a head on Tuesday morning after White House press secretary Katie Zacharia said in her first press briefing that the administration has asked Guilfoyle to resign.

It was first reported by The Wall Street Journal last week that Guilfoyle asked Trump donor Eric Deters to a pay $100,000 credit card bill.

Hiding the evidence: Not only did Guilfoyle apparently ask Deters for a little cash but she requested he do the transaction through a wire transfer to not leave a paper trail, The Hill’s Julia Manchester wrote.

The Wall Street Journal also reported over the weekend that Deters allegedly helped fund Guilfoyle’s luxury vacations to promote their business interests.

Following the Deters report, the accusations mounted against Guilfoyle, who was previously married to California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) and engaged to Donald Trump Jr.

Guilfoyle responds: The former ambassador responded to the resignation on the social platform X, saying that the “allegations are false.”

“I will forever be grateful to President Donald J. Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio for entrusting me with the extraordinary privilege of representing the greatest country in the world,” Guilfoyle wrote.



It started out so well for her.

Kimberly Guilfoyle, the U.S. ambassador to Greece until she was effectively fired on live television on Tuesday when the new White House press secretary said that President Trump had asked for her resignation, was at one point engaged to Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son. The couple owned a $9.7 million home in Florida, appeared at Trump rallies together and sent each other adoring posts on Instagram.

“Falling in love with my fiancé more and more every day,” Ms. Guilfoyle posted on Instagram on Valentine’s Day 2022. “@donaldjtrumpjr, you’re my best friend, my support system and my forever guy.”

“Thanks for always being there no matter what the haters are throwing our way,” he posted in 2024. “I love you.”

Today, the junior Mr. Trump is married to a Florida socialite and model. And Ms. Guilfoyle, who was nominated as ambassador to Greece by the president soon after her engagement to his son was broken off two years ago, is out of a job after a series of damning reports in The Wall Street Journal, including that she asked a Republican donor to pay off $100,000 on her American Express credit card just before her Senate confirmation hearing in July 2025.


While she leaves the inner circle, Alien Musk has returned.  Sara Boboltz (BUZZFEED) reports Alex Gibney and Ronan Farrow who made the documentary MUSK have some questions regarding Musk and his DOGE boys who filtered through highly sensitive data on American citizens and then did what with it? 


The Supreme Court on Tuesday took up a Trump administration’s bid to prevent a watchdog group from seeking information about the Department of Government Efficiency, which played a key role in firing thousands of federal workers and canceling government funding.

The court agreed to hear a Justice Department appeal that sought to prevent Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington from obtaining records under the Freedom of Information Act. A ruling is due by the end of June.

The Trump administration has argued that DOGE, spearheaded by former administration adviser Elon Musk, was not subject to what are known as FOIA requests.

DOGE, which played a key role in dismantling the U.S. Agency for International Development, was a controversial feature of Trump’s early months in office, triggering various lawsuits. Its operations have since dwindled.


Last year, the D.C. District Court sided with the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, watchdog in its lawsuit against DOGE, which argued that the agency is subject to the Freedom of Information Act but was ignoring public records requests. After the court allowed CREW’s lawsuit to move forward, and gave the watchdog group a sworn deposition from acting DOGE Administrator Amy Gleason, the Trump administration stepped in to appeal the decision.

The conservative-majority Supreme Court has interfered in the case before, blocking a CREW discovery request last summer. Now the high court will hear the Trump administration’s argument that DOGE was a presidential advisory organization and not a federal agency—making it exempt from public records requests.


 DOGE raises so many questions that deserves answers.  Possibly Democrats taking control of one or both houses of Congress could force answers to those questions? Daniel Desrochers and Oliver Ward (POLITICO) report: 

 
Democrats know they can’t repeal President Donald Trump’s tariffs as long as he’s in the White House. But if they win control of Congress, they plan to haul in top administration officials and possibly executives to explain how Trump picked his targets in his trade war — and why he gave others a pass.

With midterm elections less than a month out, Democratic lawmakers and aides on the House Ways and Means, House Foreign Affairs and Senate Finance Committees are preparing a big oversight push on Trump’s trade policies, especially suspected quid pro quos that may have benefited wealthy interests and foreign governments.

Among the exchanges drawing scrutiny from Democrats are the president’s decision to lower tariffs on Switzerland after a visit from gift-bearing executives with Rolex and other Swiss firms and a move to ease export restrictions on the United Arab Emirates months after an Emirati royal invested in a Trump-linked cryptocurrency company.

“We're going to legislate, but we will investigate, as well,” said Rep. Jimmy Panetta (D-Calif.), who sits on House Ways and Means. “There's some low-hanging fruit when it comes to the appropriate investigations that need to be done in this administration's pay-to-play scheme that is so prevalent.”


There are a lot of questions that could be answered if Democrats get control of even one house of Congress.   Robert Reich reminds that the corruption is linked to the economy: 

In these last weeks before the midterms, Democratic candidates have been gaining ground by talking about two things: the affordability crisis and political corruption.

If Democrats regain control of Congress and genuinely want to respond to affordability, they’ll need to do everything possible to root out the corruption.

The two are inseparable. In large part, prices are rising faster than paychecks because so much of the economy has become subject to political bribery, Trump Republican pay-to-play schemes, and kickbacks to Trump and his cronies.

1. Trump’s war and the corruption underlying it

Trump’s war on Iran is causing Americans to spend almost 50 percentmore on gas than before the war, on average. And the diesel fuel needed to transport almost everything else we buy now average.
These price increases due to Trump’s war tell only half the story. The other half is the political corruption at the root of the war — enriching Trump’s friends and family.


As prices increase, more suffer because Chump has gutted the safety net.  THE NEWSHOUR (PBS) reported on that last night.


Geoff Bennett:

More than five million people have lost their Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits since President Trump's so-called One Big Beautiful Bill passed last year. The bill cut SNAP funding, expanded work requirements, and recently pushed more program costs to states.

And, as Stephanie Sy reports, that's meant many more people are turning to food banks for support.

Stephanie Sy:

Seventy-year-old Joan Steenburgh rarely misses her weekly trips to the food pantry. In rural Hanover, Virginia, she visits Moments of Hope to supplement SNAP benefits for herself and the two children she cares for.

Joan Steenburgh, SNAP Recipient:

Now my food stamps have been cut from $500 a month to $300. I would expect the most people that are politicians, $300 meal would be nothing to them. But you expect for us to raise two healthy children for $300 a month. It's no way possible that you can do that unless you have help.

Stephanie Sy:

More than 100,000 Virginians have lost their SNAP benefits in the last year. And in Central Virginia, SNAP participation is down more than 15 percent.

Dennis Hatchett, CEO, Feed More:

When SNAP changes, people are forced to either not eat or access food banks.

Stephanie Sy:

Dennis Hatchett is the head of hunger relief organization Feed More supporting food pantries across the region. He says, in the last year, he's seen a 20 percent increase in visits to local food pantries.

Dennis Hatchett:

Can food banks be a substitution for SNAP? I'd have to tell you, absolutely not. They're meant to work in conjunction. SNAP is the single most effective means of fighting food insecurity, and food banks are here to provide a supplement at the end of the month.

Stephanie Sy:

President Trump's One Big Beautiful Bill is projected to cut $186 billion in federal spending on SNAP over the next decade.

DONALD TRUMP, President of the United States: In one year, we have lifted 2.4 million Americans, a record off, of food stamps.

(CHEERING)

Stephanie Sy:

The law raised the age limit to be exempt from SNAP work requirements from 55 to 65 and increased the amount of paperwork required to stay enrolled. And starting next year, states with higher SNAP error rates will lose federal funding and have to pick up part of the benefit costs.

In the last year, almost every state has seen a decline in people enrolled in SNAP. And many still eligible are receiving much lower benefits.

Betty Hayes, Moments of Hope Food Pantry: We have people that are getting as low as $17 a month in food stamps or SNAP benefits.

Stephanie Sy:

Betty Hayes runs Moments of Hope Food Pantry. She says client visits have doubled in the last two years, but her neighbors' support will help them get by.

Betty Hayes:

At the beginning of the year in my back warehouse, I had enough surplus, a two-month window. So if I could not get any more food, I had two months' worth of nonperishable items that I could make it through with the clients that we had. I have two weeks' worth of food in the back warehouse.

I think the community will step in because the community has stepped in before. And I have never run out of food. We just keep on going.

Stephanie Sy:

The Trump administration says the changes will cut waste and fraud and decrease dependency on government assistance, a stance echoed by Republican lawmakers.

Rep. Mike Johnson (R-LA):

I make this very clear. We are not cutting Medicaid. We are not cutting SNAP. We're working on the elements of fraud, waste and abuse.

Rep. Tim Burchett (R-TN):

Every dollar from this program is intended to help feed eligible individuals in need. That's not where every dollar goes, not by a long shot.

Rep. Randy Fine (R-FL):

These programs have massive waste, fraud, and abuse in them. Democrats don't want to tackle them. Republicans do.

Stephanie Sy:

But Dennis Hatchett says the people Feed More serves rely on SNAP to put food on the table.

Dennis Hatchett:

There's this misconception that people who are on SNAP don't need SNAP. What we're finding is that the vast majority of people who are accessing SNAP are working. They're asset-limited, income-constrained, employed people. We have got stats that show as many as you know 50, 60 percent of the people who are accessing our food banks are people who are working one, two, even three jobs.

Stephanie Sy:

And Joan Steenburgh, a former nurse, says with less money for food, she now may have to go back to work.

Joan Steenburgh:

Well, I have worked for all, what are you talking about, 30 years in nursing or taking care of people. And now, instead of me sitting back and enjoying life, I have got to get a job to be able to raise enough money and be 70 years old and have to get a part-time job at this point in your life again to be able to make ends meet.


Let's wind down with this from Senator Patty Murray's office:


Washington, D.C. – Today, Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Vice Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, and Congresswoman Marcy Kaptur (OH-09), Ranking Member of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Energy and Water Development, released the following statement on the Trump administration holding back or cutting off billions of dollars Congress provided the Department of Energy to bring new energy online and lower Americans’ energy costs. Four recent reports detail how, over the last 18 months, President Trump’s policies have raised energy costs for families and delayed and defunded critical energy investments.

“President Trump hasn’t just sent gas prices through the roof with his war with Iran; he and his administration have systematically held up and cut off energy investments Congress has made that should be lowering families’ energy bills. Congress gave the Department of Energy tens of billions of dollars to build out the power grid and cut the costs that families pay to heat and cool their homes. But the Trump Administration is still holding that money back and letting politics decide which projects survive. This president’s corruption is already sending Americans’ energy bills higher. The Constitution gives Congress the power of the purse. We will keep pressing until this money reaches the projects and families it was meant for,” said Murray and Kaptur.

Congress provided funding through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, the Inflation Reduction Act, and the annual Energy and Water Development appropriations bills for a variety of cost-cutting energy investments. The funding supports power lines, grid upgrades, home energy savings, and bringing more power online. But starting in January 2025, the Trump Administration froze funds for energy programs and kept them frozen after Kaptur and Murray demanded answers. The Department announced the cancellation of 24 awards worth $3.7 billion in May 2025 and another 321 worth nearly $8 billion on October 1, 2025. In July 2026, the Department’s lawyers admitted in court that the October cancellations were based solely on the politics of each recipient’s state.

Four reports released recently show the Department of Energy is failing to spend money Congress provided—driving up Americans’ costs—and it is letting politics drive its decisions:

  1. Recent analysis from Energy Innovation, which includes state-level impacts, found that the Trump administration’s energy policy changes since January 2025, including the Department’s cancellation of hydrogen hub funding, will cost households an additional $920 billion for energy from 2026 through 2040, or about $6,500 more in energy costs per household.
  2. The Department of Energy Alumni Network and Lawyers for Good Government reported that a year after the Department canceled hundreds of awards, 61 percent of terminated awards remain in limbo, 69 percent of the awards the Department said it would keep have received negligible funding in the past six months, and another 1,731 projects worth $3.9 billion have heard nothing from the Department.
  3. The Natural Resources Defense Council published internal Department records, obtained through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, indicating that DOE’s committee reviewing awards for termination was made up entirely of political appointees and Department of Government Efficiency staff. This follows DOE’s earlier admission in court that its decision to cancel energy projects “was based solely on the political identity of the grant recipient’s state.”
  4. The EFI Foundation found that 94 percent of the $57.5 billion Congress provided DOE through the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act has still not reached recipients, and $29.3 billion, or 51 percent, has not been legally committed to any project.

###



The following sites updated:



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Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Science grab bag


Science grab bag.  First up, a rover on Mars but not Curiosity.  iHEART reports:

The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at Caltech has set a new interplanetary record with NASA's Mars Perseverance rover, which has now traveled over 28 miles on the Martian surface. This achievement surpasses the previous record held by NASA's Opportunity rover, which covered a similar distance over 14 years before its mission ended in 2018. Perseverance has been exploring Mars for nearly six years, according to Design World.

The Opportunity rover, which landed on Mars in January 2004, was initially designed for a 90-day mission but exceeded expectations by lasting nearly 15 years. It traveled more than 28 miles, making significant scientific discoveries about Mars' ancient wet conditions, as noted by Engineering.com.

Perseverance's record-breaking journey highlights the advancements in rover technology and exploration capabilities. The rover's mission continues to provide valuable insights into Mars' geology and climate, contributing to NASA's ongoing efforts to understand the Red Planet's potential for past microbial life.

So that's Perseverance setting a new record. But Curiosity is in the news. Alan Palazon (DIGITAL CAMERA WORLD) reports:

NASA’s Curiosity rover has captured a dramatic panorama revealing what the space agency says is the “most detailed view yet” of distant, rugged cliffs that its scientists had been awaiting a closer look at.

According to NASA, the sunrise panorama is a compilation of six images captured using the rover’s Mastcam, which features a “Left Eye” 34mm camera and a “Right Eye” 100mm camera, at 8:30 a.m. Mars time on August 11.

The agency said that Curiosity’s Mastcam was able to render “striking blue hues” in the foreground while also capturing the “bright morning light” illuminating the yardangs, a series of rocky crags on the horizon.
“NASA’s Curiosity rover offers the most detailed view yet of distant, wind-carved Martian cliffs, highlighting features the mission’s scientists have long been waiting to see up close,” the space agency released in a statement.

According to NASA, the yardang layer extends roughly 10 miles across the northwestern surface of Mount Sharp, a 3-mile-tall mountain that Curiosity has been ascending since 2014.

Over the past 12 years, NASA scientists remotely controlling Curiosity from the agency’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California, have used the rover to examine the different geological layers making up Mount Sharp.

Curiosity landed on Mars August 5, 2012.  And it continues to pay off.  In news of other photography, David Whitaker (AEROSPACE AND MECHANICAL INSIDER) reports: 

New Horizons spent only hours gathering its best observations of Pluto, yet those close-ups may define the dwarf planet for decades. NASA identifies no planned return mission capable of replacing them, or the spacecraft’s later views of Arrokoth, with comparable close-range imagery. The constraint is not camera development. It is the time, energy and mission architecture required to put another spacecraft that deep into the outer solar system.
The NASA mission remains active, but its close encounters are behind it. New Horizons flew past Pluto on July 14, 2015, after a journey of more than nine years. It then passed Arrokoth on Jan. 1, 2019, making that Kuiper Belt object the most distant target explored up close. As of 2025, the spacecraft was focused on collecting heliophysics data rather than approaching another major imaging target.
Before New Horizons arrived, even the Hubble Space Telescope could offer only a coarse view of Pluto. During its flyby, New Horizons recorded mountains, broad ice plains, glaciers, moons and layers in the dwarf planet’s atmosphere. NASA’s comparison of changing Pluto observations shows that a New Horizons image taken roughly 77,000 kilometers from the surface resolved structures smaller than a mile across.

Lastly, Filip (WHAT IF) ponders what if a black hole swallowed Jupiter:

It sounds like science fiction, but imagining a collision between Jupiter and a black hole helps reveal just how delicate our Solar System really is. Space is not empty and peaceful. It is a dynamic, violent environment where gravity shapes everything on a massive scale.

If a stellar black hole ever entered the outer Solar System and moved toward Jupiter, the consequences would not just affect the gas giant. They could threaten the stability of the entire planetary system, including Earth.

Here are seven key stages of what such an encounter might look like and why it would be catastrophic.

1. Jupiter is a Giant Built for Dominance

Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System, with a mass more than 318 times that of Earth. It is so massive that it contains more material than all other planets combined.

Its gravity plays a major role in shaping the Solar System, influencing asteroid paths and helping to stabilize orbital dynamics.

However, in a direct confrontation with a black hole, Jupiter’s size would offer no real protection. A black hole is not just massive. It is extremely dense, concentrating enormous gravitational force into a very small region of space. In such a scenario, Jupiter would be outmatched from the very beginning.
2. Black Holes Are Small but Extreme
A black hole may not appear large, but its mass is compressed into an incredibly dense point known as a singularity. This creates gravity so intense that not even light can escape it.
Stellar black holes typically form from collapsed massive stars and can contain several times the mass of our Sun within a region only tens of kilometers wide.

If such an object entered the Solar System, it would dramatically distort space around it. Even distant planets would begin to feel its gravitational influence, and space itself would become warped in its vicinity.


So those are the first two steps, use the link to read all seven.


"The Snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS): 

Tuesday, October 13, 2026.  Turnout for Chump's Desperatin Tour continues to dwindle, Chump can't connect with voters, Priss Pot Hegseth has a huge host of problems, Jeffrey Epstein remains an issue, and much more.






CNN’s Kaitlan Collins on Monday aired humiliating footage of pervasive empty seats at President Donald Trump’s rally in Youngstown, Ohio, one week after Trump insisted he has never had an empty seat and never will.

Collins, hosting “The Source,” showed video from CNN’s crew inside the Covelli Centre revealing bare stretches in the arena’s upper levels. She allowed that it was hard to know how much to read into the turnout, then turned to Trump’s own claims.

“But he is the one who’s saying there are these big overflow rooms,” Collins said.

Her guest, Democratic strategist Karen Finney, said Trump was trying to spin his events as if it were still the 2016 or 2024 campaign, and argued Democrats should want him on the road.

“I say keep him out there because he is mobilizing Democratic voters. He is doing more for our base, frankly,” Finney said.

Collins wasn't the only reporter who noticed. Washington Post White House correspondent Emily Davies posted on X in real time as Trump took the stage, writing: "There are entirely empty sections in the arena where Trump is currently hosting a rally in Youngstown, Ohio. Both parties see this area as key to winning the races for Senate and governor. These photos were taken as Trump walked on stage." 




Chump's Desperation Tour rolls on and does so with frustration on the part of Chump. Edith Olmsted (THE NEW REPUBLIC) explains: 

President Donald Trump’s midterm campaign rally blitz has him down in the dumps.

During the initial leg of his nationwide-tour of half-full high school gyms, the president has been in a “foul mood,” one person with knowledge of his behavior told The Washington Post Monday.

Trump is still speaking in rooms that are packed with supporters -- seeing as he’s purposefully touring in deep red areas -- but this time around, the venues are smaller, and the vibe is different. Trump’s speaking events don’t feel so much like pep rallies as they do stops on a farewell tour.

Trump is a lot less popular now than he was the last time he hit the campaign trail. The president has even become a liability to some Republican candidates. Ahead of his visit to Syracuse on Friday to support the New York Republican gubernatorial candidate, conservative radio host Bob Lonsberry urged him to cancel, according to the Post. “Stay away, Mr. President,” he wrote on social media. “The last thing Bruce Blakeman needs is a visit from you.”

He's had to move to smaller venues and even those don't fill up.  The Desperation Tour comes with a built-in whiff of . . . desperation.  Chump is lumbering around the country with low energy and much less interest on the part of the public in catching him. Tom Latchem (DAILY BEAST) notes Chump is in a battle with reality currently: 

Donald Trump has flooded social media with posts celebrating his rally crowds after a series of embarrassing reports exposed their dwindling attendance.

The president, 80, kicked off his week by sharing at least seven posts and several videos on Truth Social that praised his ability to draw big numbers. The early morning Monday barrage included screenshots of posts by MAGA influencers declaring that his supporters were more enthusiastic than ever.

The posting spree came hours after Trump boasted that his campaign events were “legendary,” despite evidence of empty seats and a Daily Beast/PunchUp investigation last Tuesday that revealed how much his audience has shrunk since his first presidential campaign.




He's lying.  He's like a certain pop singer who cancelled a tour because it was not selling tickets but publicly insisted she had decided to stay home with her newborn.  No, she only decided that after she discovered she couldn't sell tickets.  Brandon Weichert (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) writes:

November 3 is just around the corner, and President Donald J. Trump faces a historic defeat in this year’s Midterms.

Of course, he doesn’t see it that way.
As he keeps telling the world, the negative polling for Republicans is not “his” polling numbers.

Contrary to what the forty-seventh president believes, however, the negative poll numbers indicate how unpopular the president’s policies are.
One new Financial Times/Focaldata poll highlights how deeply unsatisfied with the GOP American voters are when it comes to their handling of the economy, inflation, and the war with Iran.

According to the poll, Republicans will lose significant seats in the US House of Representatives.

The president’s overall approval rating is currently a meager 34 percent, the lowest of his presidency (and lower than George W. Bush’s approval rating when the GOP lost the 2006 Midterms).




Marni Rose McFall (NEWSWEEK) notes data that appears to offer very bad news for Chump:

Early voting data from Ohio could be a stark warning for GOP candidate and incumbent Republican Senator Jon Husted.

Husted faces a challenge from former Senator Sherrod Brown in a special election to finish the term for which Vice President JD Vance was elected in 2022.

With the campaign season in its final weeks, a new CNN analysis shows that after the first few days of early voting, affiliated Democrats make up larger shares of pre-election voters than in the 2024 presidential election. Even in Republican parts of the state.

Historically, the party in the White House loses seats in the midterms when the president is unpopular. All 435 House seats and 35 Senate seats are up for election in November, along with key gubernatorial races.



It's 21 days until election day.  Early voting goes on in many states but the last day to vote is election day November 3rd. There's not a great deal of time left for Chump's Desperation Tour to land any impact.  And besides, it's had little impact so far.  Brandon Weichert (NATIONAL SECURITY JOURNAL) notes:

According to an October 12 NBC News report, President Donald Trump is scrambling to sustain the Republican Party’s ailing poll numbers going into the 2026 Midterm Elections.

Despite his public claims to the contrary, Trump clearly fears the outcome of the impending Midterms.
If the GOP loses the Midterms, it will seriously impede the Trump administration’s future policies.

In fact, if the Democrats win sizable majorities in the House of Representatives and a Senate majority, the Trump team could soon face significant legal jeopardy.
As Trump works the campaign stops harder, he might be surprised by how small the crowds are. Whereas he once commanded legions of loyal voters at the height of his power, crowd sizes are shrinking.


Things have gotten so bad for Republicans heading into the midterms that some of their strategists don’t want anyone to see the polling, according to a top election analyst.

Jessica Taylor, Senate and governors editor for the Cook Political Report, said on MS NOW this weekend that a single conversation from last week captured the mood.
“The overall environment is just so bleak right now,” Taylor said. “I talked with one strategist last week and they said, you know, no one even wants to show anyone polls because they’re so bad right now.”

The host asked whether Republicans were really on their back foot. Taylor pointed to where the party is spending its money.
“Just to tell you how bad it is, the fact that Republicans are spending in Kansas and South Carolina right now,” she said. “It’s little fires everywhere that are turning into potentially big fires.”


Amira Turner (THE MIRROR) offers details about a Desperation Tour stop in Syracuse, New York:

He continued to lose his audience. Videos circulating on social media show one supporter sitting directly behind him, checking his watch. Trump’s speech then took a left turn as he started discussing cars, “lines of different states, and you'll see one has Cadillacs, because they like Cadillacs better than they like Mercedes, but one has an Escalade, and one has a 50-year-old Chevy.”


Attendees seemed bored and confused by the president’s word salad, prompting social media comments about the state of his fanbase.

A viral edit of Trump’s speech zooms in on audience members' disinterested faces as Simon and Garfunkel's The Sound of Silence plays.


To the tiny crowds that turn out for the Desperation Tour, Chump talks about things that matter . . . to him.  He lies about affordability and the economy.  And he whines.  He whines a whole lot.  And while Americans are struggling to put food on the table and to afford gas for their cars, Chump's forever whining.  Lee Moran (HUFFINGTON POST) explains: 


The president floated the possibility of rechristening either the Atlantic or Pacific Ocean during a campaign rally in Tennessee on Saturday.
“We’ve got the Gulf, we’ve got a beautiful lake, and now someone said, ‘You need a river,’” he claimed. “So, we need a river, we need an ocean. So, I was thinking of either the Atlantic or the Pacific.”

“We call it Trump Ocean or Ocean of the Americas, something like that,” Trump added.
The president has already used executive orders to attempt to rename the Gulf of Mexico as the “Gulf of America” and Lake Ontario as “Lake America,” although the orders can’t force other countries to follow his lead.
He has also talked about renaming the state of New Mexico as “New America.”

No one in the country is losing sleep because neither the Pacific nor the Atlantic Ocean is called "Trump Ocean."  No one. 


Moving on to the Secretary of Defense Priss Pot Hegseth, Michael Tomasky (THE NEW REPUBLIC) responds to Hegseth's call for live streaming an execution:

Donald Trump has done a lot of repulsive things as president and taken this country down moral sinkholes most of us never thought we’d encounter. But if he approves the livestreaming of the execution of Nidal Hasan -- and Hegseth’s announcement last week was just a recommendation; Trump said over the weekend that he will decide -- it will easily be the most depraved thing he’s done.

Hasan’s crimes are sickening. He killed 13 people, including a pregnant woman, and injured 32 more when he opened fire at Fort Hood, Texas, on November 5, 2009. I’m an opponent of the death penalty, mainly because there’s just way too much evidence that our justice system wrongly convicts people. Since 1972, 203 people sentenced to death in this country have been later exonerated. I’ll admit, though, that in cases of premeditated mass murder like this one, where the crime was unspeakable and the guilt is clear, I don’t lose much sleep when I learn that the perp will be put to death.

But televising it is barbaric. Turning the killing of a human being, any human being, into a spectator sport is about as sick as it gets. The United States of the mid-1930s was not exactly a progressive Eden, to say nothing of the Commonwealth of Kentucky. A Black man was lynched in the state just two years before Bethea was put to death. But even in that place and at that time, people in positions of power knew that killing a person for public amusement was one moral bridge too far and moved to outlaw it.

It’s not too far for Hegseth. The man who has overseen a disastrous war that has cost you and me $45 billion and 81 aircraft worth more than $3 billion thinks it’s a grand idea. He laid it out last week to some right-wing “news” outfit called Real America’s Voice. A “no-brainer,” he said. “It hadn’t been since World War II since we’ve done that. Well, I kinda like the mentality we had in World War II. Which was win.”

Where does one even begin? As if turning murder into a piece of theater is on par with the global fight to stop fascism. As if taking a human life on TV is a “win” comparable to the defeat of Hitler. What kind of monster talks like this?


Priss Pot Hegseth does.  He's the kind  of monster that talks like that.  And Americans have had enough of him.  Jazmin Tolliver (HUFFINGTON POST) notes:

Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) slammed Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth and his “failed” leadership after Hegseth said the public will be able to watch the execution of the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan. 

Tillis criticized Hegseth Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press” after moderator Kristen Welker asked him what he thinks the impact of televising the execution will be. 
“It’s another example of where U.S. lives, American lives will be put at risk,” Tillis replied. “Terrorist organizations will use this as a recruiting tool. It will radicalize other people. And this is not who we are.”

Tillis argued that while the Fort Hood shooter “should be put to death,” there is “a way to deal with this that’s proper, and there’s a way to deal with this that’s more improper than I have ever observed in my life.” 

Further discussing the livestream plan that has faced bipartisan pushback, the North Carolina senator reiterated his stance: “It’s another example of what Pete Hegseth and all of his bravado needs to get the hell out of the Department of Defense because he is a failed leader.”

Meanwhile, William D. Hartung (THE HILL) calls out another of Priss Pot's 'brilliant' ideas:

In a speech that covered a lot of ground, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced recently that he was creating a panel called “Project Meridian,” to look at the future of warfare. It will be led by three individuals: Elon Musk of SpaceX, Palmer Luckey of Anduril, and former Georgia House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.).

The appointment of Musk and Luckey to head the panel should sound alarm bells on Capitol Hill. Both men lead companies that have received billions of dollars in Pentagon contracts. And if our future strategy relies heavily on automated warfare, uncrewed vehicles and other AI-driven systems, they stand to make tens or hundreds of billions more in the decades to come. 

In a rational approach to security, strategy drives budgets, and budgets purchase weapons that fit that strategy. In addition, military personnel, their civilian counterparts, and the growing ranks of government contractors need to be trained to use those systems effectively.  
But this textbook version of national defense strategy rarely plays out so neatly. There are disagreements on strategy within the executive branch, including on when it is worth launching wars like the current conflict with Iran. Congress is also generally divided on key issues of war and peace. 

In addition, decisions on weapons purchases too often hinge on where the systems are built, not whether they are aligned with a coherent strategy. Congress often adds more units of a given system to the budget than the Pentagon has requested, or prevents the department from retiring systems it sees as obsolete.  

And then there's this . . . 



Hegseth lied.  Repeatedly.  He lied about the fallen and he lied about the injured.  



Turning to the late Jeffrey Epstein who died in jail.  The close friend and roll dog of Chump was a pedophile and sex trafficker.  His assistant Ghislaine Maxwell was moved by Trump from a low security prison to a minimum security prison that's considered to be Club Fed and where she gets all these perks that she's not entitled to but then due to her convictions, she's not even supposed to be in a minimum security prison.  But she's Chump's friend and he put her there -- some say to keep her from talking about what she knows.  Poppy Wood (THE TELEGRAPH OF LONDON) reports:

Democrats have begun naming associates of Jeffrey Epstein whose identities were redacted in official files.

Leon Botstein, a former president of Bard College in New York, resigned from his remaining academic posts on Wednesday after Jamie Raskin, a Democrat and senior member of the House judiciary committee, wrote a letter to the university linking him to several emails in the tranche of documents relating to the Epstein investigation.

It included an email from May 2014 that was attributed to Mr Botstein, in which the author asked Epstein whether a young woman was “for me, or are you keeping her for yourself”.

In the publicly available version of the file, Mr Botstein is not named. However, Democrats are privy to the unredacted version and Mr Raskin’s letter said the email address used was “President@Bard.edu”, at a time when Mr Botstein was president of the college.

The congressman alleged that the woman, referred to as Jane Doe in the letter, was being “groomed” at the time by Epstein, the paedophile billionaire who died in 2019 while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.



Botstein led Bard College from 1975 and was known as a deft fundraiser who helped earn the small institution global renown. Bard is home to the Center for Curatorial Studies (CCS), one of the most prominent graduate programs in curatorial practice in the United States, as well as its affiliated CCS Hessel Museum of Art. Over his five-decade tenure, Botstein helped make the college's curatorial program a must-watch.

But his reputation was dealt a grievous blow by the Epstein files, which showed that Botstein corresponded closely with the late financier for years, including after Epstein's conviction for soliciting a minor for prostitution. In one widely reported 2013 exchange, Botstein signed off with "Miss you," and elsewhere wrote of treasuring his "new friendship" with Epstein, even wishing him well after news broke of his sex-trafficking scheme.

Bard College commissioned an independent review of Botstein's relationship with Epstein in April. Conducted by the law firm WilmerHale, the review determined that Botstein had not committed any crimes but found that his ties to Epstein cast doubt on his leadership. "In his public statements and his statements to the Bard community, President Botstein minimized and was not fully accurate in describing his relationship with Epstein," the review concluded.

The review also noted that Botstein had visited Epstein's now-notorious island, invited Epstein to visit Bard, and accepted payments from him. According to the review, Botstein "forcefully" argued that raising money for Bard was "paramount": "His view was, ‘I would take money from Satan if it permitted me to do God's work.'"

Botstein remained closely involved with Bard after his resignation, serving as artistic co-director of the Bard Music Festival and leader of The Orchestra Now, the college's graduate-level music program. He also continued to conduct the American Symphony Orchestra. His lingering presence, however, was divisive on campus.


Let's wind down with this from Senator Elizabeth Warren's office:


Amid increasing concerns over utility costs and other data center problems, the report finds that the “data center industry is bulldozing local communities… leaving ordinary citizens stuck with the bills.”

Warren releases 27-page report with findings of investigation of AI data center operators 

Text of Report (PDF)

Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) released a new report, Power and Profits: How the AI Data Center Boom Costs Households and Communities, containing the findings of their nearly yearlong investigation into how AI data centers raise costs for communities. 

The report found that Big Tech data center companies are not doing enough to pay their “‘fair share,’ and … continue to aggressively seek financial subsidies from residential ratepayers and state and local governments. This leaves ratepayers, taxpayers, and local communities shouldering many of the costs while Big Tech reaps the benefits.”

On December 15, 2025, the lawmakers sent letters to Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, CoreWeave, Digital Realty, and Equinix, requesting detailed information on their plans to mitigate their data centers’ impact on local communities following reports of data centers driving up residential utility costs. 

The Senators’ staff supplemented this investigation with additional information obtained from interviews and discussions with representatives of these companies over the past year. The investigation reveals that some of the wealthiest companies in the world are not doing enough to pay the full costs of their data center development and in fact continue to aggressively seek financial subsidies from residential ratepayers and state and local governments. Specific topline findings of this investigation include:

1. The data center companies are not paying their “fair share.” While the data center companies publicly claim they support paying the energy costs required to serve their facilities, all data center developers made clear that their commitments to paying their “full energy costs” and “full cost of service” refer to the costs of infrastructure exclusively benefitting them and do not cover the full spectrum of costs that data centers impose on residential ratepayers. 

The companies broadly opposed “but-for” cost allocation standards requiring them to pay the full cost of any upgrades triggered by their facilities — upgrades that would not have been needed but for the existence of the data center—instead arguing that these costs should be shared by all ratepayers. Moreover, while the companies point to new state regulations as sufficient to prevent costs from being shifted onto consumers, they regularly lobby state legislatures for more favorable terms, including through playing states off of each other by threatening to move elsewhere.

“[T]he companies commit to paying for infrastructure that solely benefits them, but dispute how much they should pay for shared infrastructure that is paid for by all ratepayers but was only built to accommodate the data center,” wrote the senators.

2. Data centers avoid scrutiny by seeking NDAs that limit community input on AI data center locations and impacts. All four Big Tech companies routinely request nondisclosure agreements from utility companies, landowners, other commercial partners, and in some cases even government officials. Several of the Big Tech companies explicitly acknowledged that the goal of requesting NDAs with public officials is to limit public scrutiny by preventing the local community from learning about the project.

For example, Meta stated that “[m]aintaining confidentiality during project development increases efficiency and speed by enabling all stakeholders to remain focused on the needs of a proposed project,” implicitly excluding local residents from the group of relevant stakeholders.

3. The data center companies continue to aggressively seek tax breaks that cost states billions in lost revenue while providing little evidence of economic benefits. While the developers surveyed often downplayed or avoided acknowledging the billions of dollars in tax incentives they receive from state and local communities throughout the Congressional inquiry, in practice, they actively seek out lucrative tax incentive packages. They acknowledged that they will continue to request and accept sales tax exemptions on chips and other equipment, the most valuable form of tax break for data centers. Despite accepting billions of dollars in financial subsidies from state governments, none of the seven companies surveyed were able or willing to offer comprehensive quantitative evidence on full-time job creation at their facilities.

    This investigation made clear that the industry receives enormous handouts while making questionable claims about paying its fair share of electricity costs, using NDAs to keep communities in the dark, accepting billions in tax incentive packages from state and local communities, and failing to provide clear evidence of permanent jobs or economic development benefits where data centers are built.

    “In sum, this investigation finds the data center industry is bulldozing local communities and using their economic resources to play states and local communities against one another, creating a race to the bottom in which state and local policymakers feel they have no choice but to accede to the data centers’ demands — and leaving ordinary citizens stuck with the bills,” concluded the senators.

    ###




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