NGOs, IOs, and GOs like USAID were and are a scam and scandal. There is a reason why Biden had Samantha Powers as head us USAID.
I saw this amoral grasping and graft first hand in AFG…but everyone said there was nothing that could be done.
Well, with the leadership we had at the time, sure.
Still more stories to be told in this area. Graft, corruption, and getting rich off govt $$$ is not something isolated to Somalians in the upper Midwest or Armenians in LA.
How do you think all those people in DC can afford to live there?
These comments illustrate why many longtime GOP conservatives will not be voting in the general election this time around. We are sick of the grifting and thug-like tactics of the MAGA/TPUSA crowd, who persist in advancing flawed candidates, like Ken Paxton, who do not meet the bare minimums of character and integrity. Sad …
This is so cool, cannot wait for it to become fully activated. This will be one of the legacy achievements of this administration. Way to go, @jgebbia https://t.co/GyzAsUfiBR
"Our systems and our processes in place are gold standard. I will stand by them, and I will stand by our elections employees to the end."
https://t.co/22GUSte1Xh
A coffee shop pays a higher tax rate than a data center?
That comparison needs context.
Arizona exempts certified data centers from sales and use taxes on qualifying equipment purchases. They still pay taxes on nonqualifying purchases, property taxes, and other applicable state and local taxes.
And equipment exemptions aren't reserved for data centers. Arizona also exempts qualifying equipment used in manufacturing and mining.
Even with the exemption, @PwCUS estimates Arizona's data center industry generated more than $1 billion in state and local tax revenue in 2024, including nearly $400 million in local taxes.
Not every data center qualifies, either. In Maricopa County, a new facility must invest at least $50 million within five years to meet the program's requirement.
And those investments add up. In its recent annual report, @azcommerce identified seven newly certified projects requiring at least $1.1 billion in combined capital investment to retain certification.
That's an incentive tied to substantial new investment, not a blanket lower "tax rate" for data centers.
Whether Arizona should offer the incentive is a legitimate policy debate. A moratorium on new applications is in effect through June 2029, and the application window closes at the end of 2033.
If we're going to debate incentives and taxes, we should give Arizonans the full picture.
Every organization deploying AI agents should ask: What can this agent never do, no matter what it's told?
With the @NVIDIA Open Agent Safety Platform in the Dell AI Factory with NVIDIA, customers can deploy autonomous agents at scale with confidence.
https://t.co/xbEU2w84TX
Medicare and Medicaid reform is crucial to prevent our younger workers from becoming effectively indentured to a corrupt and wasteful social services machine that delivers substandard care. https://t.co/8gBshTkzZZ
Phoenix is now the default city for business west of Texas.
Yes, you go to the coast for AI or specific high value items. But when it's not that, where to do you go?
Denver used to be the city, but has fallen on hard times and growth has dramatically slowed there. It's extremely expensive and has adopted California style policies.
Boise is booming but too small and with weak airport connectivity.
Vegas is booming but is one of the most poorly educated regions in the country and is very tied to the gambling/tourism business.
Salt Lake City is a viable option, but too small to be the region's business capital.
At 5.2 million people, Phoenix is now the 10th largest metro area in the country - it's big, now 67% bigger than Denver. It has a Texas like mix of bigtime manufacturing and white collar activities. It has an attractive lifestyle for many (though is a speciality draw to be sure). It's reasonable tax and pro-business. It has a hub airport.
If you want to set up a sizable business west of Texas that isn't in some ultra-high value or niche field (like AI), Phoenix is the logical default choice.
Where the city is weak is in corporate HQs, which may be one reason it flies under the radar. Also, they need to get with the DST program. They have housing price and other challenges. But on the whole, a package that's drawing a lot of people and business in.
Well, the Democrats may be pessimistic, but the rest of the world still thinks the US is a stellar investment opportunity - let’s not kill the golden goose. https://t.co/pw2jH5evje
Summary of recent polling of “regular“ voters (resonated w/me: disappointment w/Trump does not automatically mean support for Democrats - tells me I am not the only one tired of voting for who I am least afraid of). https://t.co/4eTpy9PqPu
@stephen_richer Except, as noted in the ruling, the prohibition on wholesale purging of voter lists this close to an election will result in minimal impact this time around (and provide everyone with ample time, prior to 2028, to get their arms around the details).
@stephen_richer Importantly, the court noted in that the National Voter Registration Act bars the broad purging of voter rolls in the weeks leading up to an election, which “limits the potential impact” of the decision this year.
@dannowicki@sbarchenger@lauragersony Hopefully the unmasking of grifter Hoffman in this year’s election, combined with losing almost every statewide office due to poor primary candidate selection, will relieve the AZ GOP from the grip of @TPUSA.
A hotline just for questions about data centers in Arizona?
Yep.
There's a lot of conversation about data centers right now. We're here to help sort fact from fiction and explain what it means for your community.
Water, electricity, jobs, or something you saw online. Bring us your questions.
📱 Call or text: 602-905-8423
✉️ Or email [email protected]
Let's talk facts.
I've been a cardiologist for 25+ years. The last 90 days changed medicine more than the last decade, and almost nobody noticed. Here are the 10 biggest AI breakthroughs, and why you should be excited, not afraid 🧵
1/ 37,000 AI agents. One "virtual biotech." It analyzed thousands of trials, figured out which drug targets actually work in humans, and independently proposed a lung cancer strategy that a major pharma company later pursued. AI isn't a search engine anymore. It's a co-scientist.
2/ The first drug discovered AND designed entirely by AI (Insilico's rentosertib) just entered Phase 3. In patients, it reversed biological age by 3–6 years across six different aging clocks. Read that again!
3/ As a cardiologist, this one gives me chills. The FDA authorized "Queen of Hearts," an AI that reads a standard ECG and catches heart attacks, including the hidden ones doctors miss. 2x the sensitivity. Far fewer false alarms. It pages the cardiology team itself. In a heart attack, minutes are muscle.
4/ EchoNext spots 6 types of hidden structural heart disease from a cheap, 10-second ECG, and it does it better than cardiologists. It already flagged a patient who went on to get a heart transplant. Screening that used to need an echo lab now needs a test any clinic can run.
5/ UpDoc is the first FDA-cleared AI that talks directly to patients. It checks in between visits, adjusts insulin within limits the doctor sets, and documents everything in the chart. Chronic disease no longer has to wait for your next appointment.
6/ An autonomous AI agent called MIRA, with full access to medical records, went head-to-head with ER physicians on hundreds of real cases.
AI: 87.8% correct
Doctors: 78.1%
It ordered the tests, read the results, and wrote the plan.
7/ Google released MedGemma 1.5 and MedASR, open medical AI for imaging and clinical speech that anyone can build on. Every hospital. Every researcher. Every country. Open models mean medicine moves at internet speed.
8/ The FDA authorized Aletta, the first robot that draws blood on its own. It gets the vein on the first stick 94–95% of the time, even hard veins. One technician supervises three robots. The most common procedure in medicine just got automated.
9/ UCLA's SLIViT matches specialists on 3D MRI, CT, ultrasound, and retinal scans, and it's 5,000x faster. It isn't a new model for every organ. One architecture reads them all.
10/ The FDA has now authorized 1,600+ AI medical devices. They cover radiology, cardiology, and surgery, including real-time AI that checks breast cancer margins while the patient is still on the table. This isn't coming. It's here.
What this means to you:
→ Drugs that took 10–15 years are showing human results in a fraction of the time
→ Heart attacks get caught on a cheap ECG, not after a collapse
→ Doctors get hours back
→ Patients get answers between visits
→ Aging itself is becoming treatable
This isn't "AI will replace your doctor." It's AI finally becoming good enough that medicine starts to compound. The next 18 months will feel different.
Bookmark this. We're early. Stay positive!!!