The focus of the GOP’s first ever midterm convention in September won’t be Trump’s dismal approval rating, how to end the war on Iran, or the stagnant economy. They will be spending their time, resources, and funds focusing on democratic socialism.
Axios reported Friday that the GOP has spent months pulling together an “endless” video trove of attack ads targeted at progressive commentators like Hasan Piker, and Democratic Senate nominees Abdul El-Sayed and James Talarico.
This seems like it’ll be quite the spectacle. The convention ends on September 10—the one year anniversary of Charlie Kirk’s death—and will feature speeches from Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. The convention plans to emphasize Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s MAHA movement and Vance’s anti-fraud task force, neither of which are particularly compelling. Trump is also expected to be in attendance.
This is all occurring while the vast majority of Americans disapprove of Trump’s performance, and blame him directly for their economic woes—all while he drives gas prices up higher as he drags his war on Iran on longer and longer. This event will almost certainly be an endless blooper reel of Republicans calling on the spirit of McCarthyism to try and convince Americans that it’s bad to want more affordability and less deadly bombs to Israel.
“While everyday Americans struggle to pay their bills, fill up their tanks, or put food on the table, Republicans are hosting a multimillion-dollar celebration to satisfy Donald Trump’s massive ego and tie vulnerable Republican candidates closer to his failed agenda,” DNC spokesperson Kendall Witmer said to Axios.
While the GOP itself is leading the charge against democratic socialism, Democrats are leaving it up to their PACs, as the dark money centrist thinktank Third Way just committed $15 million towards punching to their left on Thursday.
Amazon is quietly trying to build the biggest gas power plant in the country.
The Distilled newsletter reported Friday that the megacorporation has bought land and acquired permits in Pecos County, Texas, for an AI data center powered by a 7.65 gigawatt gas power plant. The plant will be completely separate from Texas’s power grid, at least in the beginning, the permits show.
The site, known as GW Ranch, got a state permit allowing the proposed power plant to emit 33 million tons of carbon dioxide, which would make it the biggest pollution site in the U.S., emitting more than the country’s biggest coal power plant, according to Distilled. That’s in sharp contrast to Amazon’s commitment to reach net-zero emissions by 2040 as part of The Climate Pledge.
Amazon filed three construction permits with the state of Texas this week to build three data center buildings immediately upon approval. Land clearing has already begun, according to satellite imagery. Amazon would join Microsoft, Google, and Meta in having its own off-grid gas power.
Amazon says that it has 10 gigawatts of carbon-free energy across 40 projects to power its existing data center operations in Texas, and that the GW Ranch will use brackish groundwater that isn’t potable and thus can’t be used for irrigation or drinking.
But that’s not likely to quell public opposition. Data centers are hugely unpopular across the country among Republicans and Democrats, both in rural and suburban areas. The centers don’t create many jobs or boost local economies. If connected to local power grids, they can drive utility rates up and cause black- and brownouts. Amid climate change and droughts, the claim that data centers will take advantage of unusable water will likely invite skepticism.
The fact that Amazon is building its own power plant for the project will be a small comfort for residents worried about utility rates, but locals still will have concerns about pollution from a gas plant bigger than any other in the U.S. Rural Texas is deeply Republican, and despite President Donald Trump’s delusions about data centers’ popularity, opposition to them on the right is growing. Now that this project is public, a big backlash could soon follow.
Representative Max Miller blamed a daycare after his daughter was rushed to the hospital last year with bruises.
Miller sued a Westlake, Ohio, daycare provider in February 2025, after the daughter he shares with his ex-wife Emily Moreno (the daughter of Ohio Senator Bernie Moreno) was taken to an emergency room with injuries “on her thighs, face, groin, and vaginal area of her body and she was caused to incur psychological trauma.” Her mother took the girl, then under two years old, to a hospital on January 27 after a daycare staff member alerted police as well as the Department of Children and Family Services.