IndieDems.com

Jay Bookman, a long-time objective observer of Georgia politics, has published an in-depth analysis of the rush to build huge data centers in the state. Here are some key excerpts from the 9/3/26 Georgia Recorder:

• GA taxpayers are subsidizing and incentivizing projects that almost certainly would have been built in Georgia anyway. Also, public money is being used to subsidize something that the public does not seem to want.
• Data centers require huge quantities of water to cool servers (and) huge amounts of electricity, straining power plants and grids and potentially raising energy costs.
• They are noisy, and once operational they don’t generate many jobs. It is not irrational to wonder whether their drawbacks outweigh their benefit, particularly to communities forced to host them.
• Another problem: “In their headlong rush to cash in on the AI boom, data center proponents often have neither the time nor the patience for working with and reassuring communities about its impact. Instead, they attempt to get their way through brute force, deception, political power and money.”

Bookman uses as a case study recent events in Effingham County, where a huge new data center was announced in late July. The facility will cover 1,400 acres and require 3.2 gigawatts of electricity, enough to serve 3 million homes. He concludes: “That’s a project of immense public impact. Yet there had been no public input or even knowledge about the project before it was announced as a finalized deal.”

FULL STORY

Excerpts from the Georgia Recorder:

Collins has come under fire for public statements by his son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, a religious and fitness influencer on social media; and by his former chief of staff and campaign adviser, Kip Talley.

• CNN has reported that Scheer’s accounts on his social media platform contained white supremacist and antisemitic tropes. A review by the Georgia Recorder included Scheer's antisemitic tropes such as that Jews control the media and are responsible for the death of Jesus.
• In one video posted in November, Scheer suggested Jews were behind societal ills including pornography and high interest rates as well as high profile political assassinations.

The Black lawmakers also noted that according to media reports, former COS Talley had participated in a group chat with white nationalists.

• Talley reportedly was discussing his efforts to intervene on behalf of an associate who was jailed for contempt of court. The associate was someone who had minimized the extent of the Holocaust and posited that non-whites were genetically predisposed to violence.
• Collins replaced Talley in July.

FULL STORY

(The Georgia Recorder is published by States Newsroom, the nation’s largest state-focused nonprofit news organization, with reporting from every capital. Here is its wrap-up of the 2026 election.)

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EVEN MARJORIE TAYLOR GREENE'S DEFECTION FAILS TO SWAY THEM!

The Trump-led Republican campaign to destroy American democracy has had frightening success, and continues to gain strength, bolstered by Georgia Republicans Gov. Brian Kemp, gubernatorial candidates Brad Raffsenberger & Burt Jones; Rep. Barry Loudermilk and the entire GA U.S. GOP Congressional delegation. They have all adopted tactics out of the fascist playbook, most notably lying and character assassination.