there's a wealth transfer going on.
0:02Regular people's wealth is being drained to build infrastructure that will enslave them.
0:10Hi everybody, welcome to back to the show. We got our special guest with us.
0:14Everybody's favorite Whitney Webb is here. Whitney has been a professional writer, researcher, journalist since 2016.
0:21She was a staff writer and senior investigative reporter for MintPress News. She's a contributing editor for Unlimited Hangout and author of the book One Nation Under Blackmail the connection between the US intelligence services, organized crime and Jeffrey Epstein. Welcome back to the show Whitney Webb. Hi Whitney.
0:39Hey, great to be here. Thanks for having me. So you have a new at Unlimited Hangout you have this new article how Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein built the Silicon Heartland. But it's in Ohio. This is something. Let me just read a few paragraphs and then I'll let you take it away.
0:58>> Sure, sounds good. Uh Wexner with Epstein's help has done much more than attract massive AI data centers to the state meaning Ohio. As this investigation will show Wexner and his closest allies Epstein among them work to create a model for the takeover of local governments via public private partnership starting first in New Albany beginning in the late 1980s. It has since spread to cover the entire state of Ohio via a network of public private partnerships Wexner Wexner helped create. This system has allowed Wexner to use billions of dollars of Ohio taxpayer money with little to no public scrutiny to finance
1:41what can only be described as a massive welfare system for corporations. Among the system's current biggest beneficiaries are Wexner's New Albany company as well as massive Big Tech corporations with important ties to Jeffrey Epstein's, for example, Amazon and Google. Meanwhile, regular Ohioans are seeing their power bills jump, provoking an affordability crisis in the state while funding for public schools, libraries, and healthcare is cut dramatically. All to keep the corporate welfare engine designed by Wexner running full tilt.
2:18Wow, so So so tell people how did this all come about? How did this start? Why is it in Ohio and why isn't it in Silicon Valley?
2:28And what does Jeffrey Epstein have to do with this?
2:31Well, it's in Ohio and it involves Epstein precisely because of Leslie Wexner. Leslie Wexner has been based in Ohio for a very long time. He's the state's richest man. And as people should know by now, he was Epstein's main benefactor for many, many years.
2:49Up until he Wexner says 2007, but of course the recent releases show that they continued to mentally talking after that date. And around in the late 1980s or so, Wexner decided to basically create what would become his own personal fiefdom in New Albany, Ohio.
3:10It was originally just, you know, sprawling farmland and he with his um longtime crony John Kessler decided to basically turn this into you know, Wexnervile for lack of a better term.
3:26And so essentially what they did is well, it pops up in a few different documents as I note in in the article, but there were basically bribery what seemed like bribery attempts to get zoning laws changed so he could build this city or town in New Albany.
3:44And one of the documents this appears in also alleges that Wexner is linked to organized crime. It's It was produced originally by the Columbus Police Department because New Albany is basically now like a de facto suburb of Columbus. It's in that same regional area, which is the Ohio's capital and Wexner's extremely influential there.
4:05And so essentially over time New Albany became a public-private partnership where the New Albany company is in a public-private governing partnership with the local government, the city of New Albany and later he got the Wexner lobby to get the law changed even more so it could be a de facto private government that's independent within Ohio, can tax citizens, issue bonds, controls it in a way that the local you know, regional government cannot which is kind of crazy in and of itself but beyond that the New Albany company has become one of the main drivers of in attracting data centers to Ohio. So the state is currently
4:52fourth in the country for most data centers.
4:56It has I think 193 but over 120 of those are like in New Albany in the New Albany area where that real estate is sold to those companies that are courted to that area you know, by the New Albany company that Wexner controls. So he's been making bank off of all of this and the way that these companies are courted is through these other public-private partnerships the model of which Wexner created initially in Columbus but now it's spread to every region of the state where taxpayer money is used to create these these large incentive packages to court these companies over there even though 75% of them would have relocated
5:38anyway but it's an insane amount of taxpayer subsidies that's being funneled to these people through this network that um, you know, Wexner created and as I note in the article, I mean, we can get into some of the specifics, but the corruption is absolute absolutely off the charts. I mean, it's it's very crazy. Um, it's like banana republic kind of stuff.
5:59Um, going in in Ohio, and you have these, uh, you know, venture capitalists and other people, you know, coming in and basically buying, uh, you know, buying politicians and using it to privatize major aspects of Ohio regional and state governments.
6:15Um, and, uh, you know, uh, a lot of these people are directly linked to people like the current vice president, J.D. Vance, who was an Ohio senator, um, or, you know, the guy who's currently running for governor of Ohio, Vivek Ramaswamy.
6:30Um, and those particular guys are part of this, uh, crowd of, uh, if you want to call them accelerationists, um, or, uh, you know, fans of the quote-unquote dark enlightenment, they're interested in privatizing government entirely, uh, and then having it be ruled by a a CEO, uh, dictator, which is basically the model, uh, proffered by Curtis Yarvin, uh, who, you know, is is cozy with all of these people. So, that effort to basically privatize government in Ohio, uh, it was started by Wexner and Epstein. And as far as the Epstein connection, um, you know, when Ghislaine Maxwell was interviewed by Todd Blanche, the deputy
7:10attorney general, uh, she said that Epstein ran New Albany. And as I note in the article, uh, Epstein is all over New Albany, and his, uh, billionaire investment company had a branch operating there, and it seems to be the same entity, uh, that was actually the Wexner investment company, um, or the New Albany property, um, company, which the Wexner Foundation admitted was a Wexner-related role that Epstein was involved in, uh, which in itself, you know, just flies in the face of the the narrative, uh, that's been, uh, put forth for how Wexner doesn't really have any anything to do with any anything bad Epstein ever
7:48did.
7:49But, you know, I mean Wexner just runs Ohio. He had members and probably, you know, has a lot of influence over the national governance as well. You know, he was redacted in the Epstein files at first as an alleged co-conspirator. He had members of Congress come to his house to depose him. I mean none of that is is normal. And anyway, sorry I've been rambling for a while.
8:13>> no, keep going. Just so there's so many things, but so this is basically just Leslie Wexner buying politicians and then privatizing the government and how so is does does it exist a city where you said that he basically got the laws changed so he can run it?
8:34He got New Albany the law changed to New Albany specifically so he could run it.
8:38But the model he created started off in Columbus and now it's popped up in every major regional area of Ohio. So what he did initially is in the early 2000s he made this public private partnership called the Columbus partnership which later gave birth to various other entities including what is now One Columbus and the Smart City Columbus which is trying to turn Columbus into a test city for smart cities nationwide.
9:07But One Columbus is specific is basically the privatized version or it's semi-private but it's it's run by the private sector and its investors which include like JP Morgan, Bank of America, Wexner's The Limited, you know, all these big um corporations and it basically replaced the regional economic development authority. It privatized it, right? And so then you have all these different public private partnerships of the same model crop up later and then you have one created in 2011 at the national at the state level, sorry, uh called JobsOhio. And JobsOhio is an extremely controversial organization as it should be because
9:50it's extremely egregious. Uh so basically um this venture capitalist who's super cozy with Reid Hoffman of LinkedIn fame and also perhaps Epstein uh infamy, if you will, name Mark Kwame uh paid uh governors uh John former governor John Kasich Kasich's uh campaign like over a million dollars and basically when Kasich got in, he put Kwame in charge of this corporation he created called JobsOhio that privatized the entire state's economic development authority.
10:25And and so basically what JobsOhio did it it it's a private corporation and then it took control of this what was formerly the state liquor tax. So the state liquor tax in Ohio, instead of going into pub the public coffers, goes is funneled into this private corporation that because it's a private corporation uh doesn't have to show show the public at all how it spends its money. And they're basically the main engine now uh nationally and then in conjunction with these regional public-private partnerships funneling taxpayer money to these corporations and what I noted in the article uh which was co-authored
11:04with Mark good one by the way.
11:06Um are are funneled into these uh you know, big incentives for these companies to relocate. And they're extremely controversial controversial in part two because the data centers have made uh power bills in Ohio just shoot through the roof. You know, after publishing this article, I've been contacted by by numerous uh people from Ohio who have said their power bills are you know, close to $700 a month for single family homes uh and that it represents a huge jump uh, from when a lot of these data centers became operational and most of them are in the Columbus area, but they're building more. And that same
11:40Mark Kvamme guy that I mentioned a second ago who helped create a JobsOhio, he has a new sovereign wealth fund, as he calls it, for the state of Ohio that is funneling money into uh, Wexner connected initiatives and also into J.D.
11:55Vance's venture capital firm Narya Capital.
11:58Um, and so and some of these uh, uh, deals that he has invested in, like he invested in a property that is uh, was being is being developed by the New Albany Company, uh, which is again Wexner controlled and they're putting a giant data center uh, in Sunbury, Ohio, uh, even though locals don't want it and they're, you know, just going to shove it through anyway, which is pretty much what what they've been doing throughout the state. And you have I mean, it's actually a huge campaign issue now in Ohio because it's so controversial, but instead of actually listening to citizens, the Ohio State Legislature
12:35instead decided to pass a law creating a uh, a commission that will dispel inaccurate myths about data centers in Ohio. So, people are just more comfortable with it, I guess.
12:48So, it sounds very dystopian. It sounds like Os- Ohio is being turned into the, you know, uh, the prototype of a techno state. Mhm. Is that Is that Is that overstating it?
13:05No, I don't think so. I think they're private They're trying to privatize the whole government in the same way that uh, it has been promoted by um, uh, people like Curtis Yarvin and Peter Thiel, uh, who of course are pretty cozy with people like J.D. Vance. Um, and uh, what what the Dark Enlightenment entails, and the best description of this uh, that I can direct people to is Ian Davis' book The Technocratic Dark State, which is about all of these people. The goal is basically to privatize the entire government and have it run by these sovereign corporations.
13:42So, instead of the public sector, you would basically be you know, a client of the of the sovereign corporation, which would be ruled by a CEO who functions as a dictator. So, now you know, I had Steve Bannon on the show last year and he talked about how these guys like Peter Thiel and Elon Musk and the the rest of them wanted to create a techno-feudal state. And I didn't even really know what he was saying back then when he was like, "What? This seems outrageous and like over the top, but it of course I was wrong and he was right because it's happening. And it's happening in places of all places, Ohio, which is the last
14:23place in the world I would think something like this would be happening, but there it is.
14:28>> Well, it's under the thumb of a really evil oligarch that basically financed the most famous sex trafficker in American history. That would be Yeah, so so talk about Can you talk about Jeffrey Epstein's involvement in in this whole kind of project in in Ohio?
14:45Yeah, sure. So, basically Epstein was intimately involved in the New Albany project, if you will, this effort to turn to create a master planned city versus a public-private partnership and basically de facto privatize it under the control of this of this company, which he was intimately involved with.
15:03And there's a lot of you know, different data points regarding that cross-pollination that I note in the piece. For example, Epstein courted top people from the New Albany company to help him design his island in the US Virgin Islands.
15:16Um >> [clears throat] >> Um he had people from New Albany manage his properties including in the USVI and Zorro Ranch, which of course have been of major interest in the sex trafficking scandal, but New Albany somehow has gotten pretty much no scrutiny even though you have Ghislaine Maxwell under oath saying that Epstein ran it.
15:37And he was clearly very involved in the company and had a lot of his financial businesses based there. But what's interesting, too, is that Epstein's involvement in New Albany overlaps with efforts by him via the Edge Foundation to court the CEOs and founders of a lot of the very same big tech companies that have now installed themselves all over New Albany.
16:01Which is quite interesting. So that would include people like Mark Zuckerberg. That would include the Google co-founders.
16:09And then of course you have Jeff Jeff Bezos of Amazon having a pretty cozy relationship with Ghislaine Maxwell. So there's direct overlap of Epstein meeting with these people. And when these companies decided to park their data centers in New Albany, Ohio of all places in the United States. And And so, >> [clears throat] >> you know, you link the entire Silicon Heartland boom, Intel, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft. You tie it back to Wexner Epstein Foundation. Is it possible that these companies just chose Central Ohio simply because of cheap land, existing fiber infrastructure, low electricity rates at the time, and and
16:53aggressive state subsidies available to anyone? Is that Is that possible? The aggressive state subsidies, as I as I already mentioned, or are a product of Wexner.
17:03>> [laughter] >> Um so And this is something that Wexner has been doing for a really long time.
17:09So as I note in my book, which came out almost I guess four years ago now, I talk a lot about how Southern Air Transport was courted by Wexner directly to relocate from Miami, Florida to Columbus, Ohio to run cargo for The Limited.
17:26And Southern Air Transport is most famous for being the CIA airline involved in Iran-Contra.
17:32They were previously directly owned by the CIA, but then owned by a CIA middleman named James Bastian, who had I think been a CIA banker or something.
17:40And so anyway, they attracted them to Ohio with all of these taxpayer taxpayer funded subsidies, and there were all these of all the jobs it was going to create. It didn't create any jobs. It basically came in, ran cargo for a couple of years at the same time that Epstein was meeting at the Clinton White House a bunch of times and with a with a scandal in China and the Columbus planes were going to China.
18:03Um, but no one wants to talk about that, I guess. So, yeah, basically there was a pump and dump of this company and they never delivered on any of their promises, but Wexner had all this taxpayer money funneled into it to do really shady stuff for The Limited, apparently.
18:23Um, and you know, that was that.
18:26And this this continues to happen. And so basically Wexner is sitting dominating the areas where these data centers are that are extremely influential. And so he has an for one person an unusual amount of influence over so many data centers. How many people can you say basically own a private government that oversees 121 data centers in the United States that are tied to some of the biggest, most important, you know, big tech corporations in the world that also double as military and intelligence contractors. And how many of those people in that category were also funding someone that was a sex
19:04trafficker linked to US and Israeli intelligence?
19:09So, are you uh when you say could I'm saying shit's up, Jimmy.
19:18>> [laughter] >> Especially in Ohio.
19:23So uh I just have my I I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around the fact that it's a uh private company that's governing a city and what is the population of New Albany, Ohio? Do you know? Uh now, I think it's 11,000, but before that it was like I don't even think it was 100 people. And so But he created the de facto Solv Corp.
19:48You know, the whole Curtis Yarvin, Thiel, Dark Enlightenment idea of like a private company being, you know, ruled by a CEO dictator. I mean, that's basically what Wexner did in New Albany.
20:02And so >> use any of those words So >> for it at the time. So how is it that they haven't received How is this possible that it's allowed to happen, A?
20:12B, how is it not gotten more scrutiny?
20:16Uh and C, why don't the people What do the people of New Albany think about this? Take however you want to take that.
20:24Uh well, you know, just look at a person who was a front man, arguably, for Wexner and related interests, Jeffrey Epstein, and look to the lengths that the the federal government has gone to cover that up and also to cover up any sort of scrutiny of Leslie Wexner. Uh that when he was deposed by Congress recently, that was the first time he was ever deposed in this case. I mean, that's insane. And they went to his house to do it. He didn't even have to go to DC. Normally, if you're deposed as part of a major sex trafficking, huge, massive scandal of great media interest and public interest, people don't come
21:04to your house to nicely interview you.
21:06You know.
21:07>> And so >> Um And so what does that tell you about his power and how does he get that power?
21:12Well, I think he has that power because he's an extremely rich and powerful man and I think you know, just like Epstein as I've noted extensively in my work on him and on his case was linked to a lot of shady financial actors and very powerful people including Rothschild banking interests, former heads of state, former top officials. Wexner presumably has a lot of those same ties.
21:40And he was never investigated even when his tax attorney was shot in the face days before he was supposed to testify to the IRS. It got you know, the document linking Wexner to that and linking Wexner to organized crime was destroyed by the police depart the police chief who was supposed to investigate it. So this is something that's been going on for a very long time and routinely I think it should be clear at this point that the US federal government is not really interested in investigating white collar crime because it works on behalf and serves the white collar criminals who pay for politicians and pay their
22:15campaigns and fly them on their private jets and give them special privileges. And then the politicians when they're in office return you know, give them a return on their investment. Let's put it that way.
22:27And the investments are bribes or you know, indirect bribes. And actually as I note in the article Ohio's largest corruption scandal and bribery scandal ever, the First Energy or HB6 scandal is tied up directly in with this group and with Wexner. It happened just a few years ago.
22:48I think the story broke in 2020 and two of the main people have ended up dead.
22:55So one of them is a lobbyist that used to work for Wexner in the New Albany company and was tied to this company First Energy.
23:03And First Energy basically bribed a bunch of people in the Ohio state government to push through legislation that bailed out a bunch of their nuclear and I think a coal-powered power plant with taxpayer money. And they the amount of bribes they spent is dwarfed by how much money they got as part of the bailout. So that was a great return on investment quote-unquote for them. But one of the people that was arrested as part of that scandal for racketeering and other things, Neil Clark, just was found in the woods near his house with a bullet to the head. It was quickly ruled a suicide and he used to
23:43work for Wexner in New Albany. And who do you think really wants these nuclear power plants functioning?
23:52AI data centers.
23:54Oh, because they need the power.
23:56They need the power.
23:58And >> Because the power demand's only going to grow go up and they're courting more and more data centers to Ohio all the time.
24:05And taxpayers are funding all of this.
24:07And this is really a microcosm of what's going on in a bigger scale. Basically, people's there's a wealth transfer going on. Regular people's wealth is being drained to build infrastructure that will enslave them.
24:19Basically.
24:19>> So so there so there they've created these private public partnerships, which is always a mark of evil if you ever hear that term private public partnerships.
24:31And they're taking the money that people pay in taxes to build a techno state that will enslave them through mass surveillance and through the implementation of 15-minute cities. Is that what you mean by that?
24:46Well, there's definitely this group is also tied to the efforts to bring, you know, digital finance to Ohio and also to bring digital ID to Ohio and all of that infrastructure. Yeah, absolutely. So, the Ohio Ohioans already have digital ID. It's called Ohio ID. It was created by Innovate Ohio, which was this board created by the same governor that made Jobs Ohio. The guy that basically bought out the governor to create Jobs Ohio was on the board and also on the board was J.D. Vance, Vivek Ramaswamy, a lot of these same figures. The current head of it right now is the co-founder of J.D. Vance's venture capital firm, Narya Capital,
25:30which was financed by Peter Thiel and Eric Schmidt of Google and all of these, you know, would-be overlords. So, they basically were tasked with, quote unquote, modernizing Ohio state government, and that includes giving everyone in Ohio a digital ID if they want to access government services or interact with the state. And Mike DeWine, the current governor, issued an executive order forcing all state agencies to onboard onto the Innovate Ohio platform controlled by people that are intimately tied to the Big Tech crowd.
26:10>> So, this sounds exactly like what Steve Bannon was was alerting us to when he came on our show.
26:17This is these guys getting together.
26:19>> Well, sure. I think there's a lot of people that have been warning about it. I personally haven't listened to Steve Bannon's take on it. I'm a little unsettled by how close he was to Jeffrey Epstein. And as someone that writes a lot about Jeffrey Epstein, I prefer not to go there, but a lot of people have been warning about this for a long time.
26:40And, you know, the the dark enlightenment crowd, you know, was hugely behind Trump in his, you know, his 2024 campaign and now his second term. A lot of big people that are open that openly embrace that idea were just appointed to the White House's new science and technology advisory board announced today. People like Mark Andreessen, Mark Zuckerberg, it's Sergey Brin, uh Wow, it's all of them.
27:13That's all >> more. I can't remember the whole list right now.
27:16>> I mean it's like all the main players.
27:17That's this is This is >> the main ones. Yes.
27:21>> overlap between those main players and and Epstein is pretty considerable. I mean Peter Thiel and and Epstein were planning to create a secret society together. They were business partners.
27:33Epstein apparently had control over this what was a Thiel VC firm fund Valor Ventures 3 which put all this money into Anduril, which is a Thiel-backed autonomous drone and and weapon manufacturer which luck would have it just got a huge deal via Jobs Ohio to install themselves at the very airport that Wexner and Epstein brought Southern Air Transport to.
27:58Back in the '90s. Now it's going to be the Anduril airfield.
28:04Pretty cool.
28:05>> Wow.
28:06This this see this almost seems unbelievable.
28:11>> [laughter] >> Right? It's a >> Yeah, I mean it it it it does, but I would encourage people to go and read this piece and talk to people in Ohio who are trying to fight against the data and exactly the kind of resistance they're receiving despite how unpopular they are. So >> Clearly this the government there is functioning without regard to what the public wants. They don't care. Um That just sounds like America.
28:36Well, sure, but what what I My point is is that Ohio is where most states will end up going if nothing is done because they are advancing this model there much more quickly.
28:48They are taking people's land much more quickly. They're their water, uh, making their electricity bills go through the roof and they are pushing through all of these subsidies, tax abatements, tax exemptions, incentives packages while gutting everything good that the public sector does, uh, you know, from public schools to any sort of publicly funded healthcare program. It is all being gutted across the board. Uh, Ohio state says they don't have any money for those things, but they have plenty of money for data centers.
29:19So, I I I had Derrick Broze on the show and he's, uh, talked about this techno state and he talked about how this isn't a new idea, uh, that this was actually started by, uh, Elon Musk's father, grandfather, and that this since World since World War II they've had this idea for a greater northern, like just like the greater Israel project, they have the greater American project and they want to make it all a a techno state. They've had this idea a technate.
29:47>> yeah.
29:48>> They've had this idea since after World War II. Are you familiar with that? Is this Is this kind of like the fruition of that? So, I'm familiar, yeah. So, the reference there, it's Elon Musk's grandfather who was in Canada, uh, Joshua Haldeman, I believe his name was and he was head of the Canadian branch of what was known as Technocracy Inc., um, which was originally created in the US, not in Canada, but had some traction in the in the post World War World War II era. Um, and uh, the authority on them for a long time has been, uh, Patrick Wood who's, uh, you know, was talking about them, I think, before
30:21anyone else was. Um, but there's a lot of interesting things to be, uh, uh, garnered from looking there and looking at the parallels today. Um, but beyond that, I think this particular current more current crowd of would-be technocrats, uh, uh, who, you know, fancy themselves accelerationists or, uh, you know, uh, in enlightened darkly enlightened people or whatever.
30:48Um you know, they basically the the interest at this point is using technology as an enforcing uh as an as an enforcement tool really to to create a you know, a private corporation uh built on you know, surveillance capitalism and um you know, they they say if you don't like the service offered to you by Sidewalk Corp, you can move somewhere else. Um but what would the real difference be in moving from a Mark Zuckerberg smart city to a Jeff Bezos smart city to a Sergey Brin smart city.
31:22Um you know, I really don't think uh that's the the the winning quote-unquote free market move there. Um I think ultimately um we're being marketed uh this um and it's and and even if they don't have you know, the public opinion on board, which with a lot of this they don't, you know, they're feeding us endless distractions and psyops and other things uh to keep us from paying attention to what's happening in people's backyards.
31:49Um and so in the case of Ohio, if you live in Ohio, this is happening in your backyard. It's not going to get uh better, it's going to get worse unless people locally organize and find a way to stop these.
32:02Um and if you know any farmers nearby you that have been approached by the New Albany company or any of these other um companies that are part of this network to sell uh their land, they should say no. And there was actually a recent story of this happening in Kentucky where you know, farmers were a a farming family were approached, you know, with millions of dollars in offers for their land and they said no cuz they didn't want to uh have a data center on it. And um you know, if you're against the world that big tech is building, uh we should not be allowing these data uh centers to be funded by us and also to be uh you
32:39know making our you know destroying um our our libraries and public schools and all of these things and paying insane power bills you know just so Leslie Wexner is is getting what he wants you know I mean it's just it's honestly crazy but again it's not exclusive to Ohio this is happening in other states Texas and California have tons of data centers and presumably it will be more very soon and I think Virginia is also you know in the top four so there's plenty of states where this battle is being had and the more distracted we are you know the less people are going to be paying attention to what's to what's
33:23happening you know locally you know I one of the people that contributes to my website unlimited hangout just told me the other day that he his community is being bought up basically by data centers mean this is something that's going to continue and it's not going to go away and if you consider that data is the new oil as has been said for a few years well remember all those protests about oil pipelines a few decades ago and how people were treated when they tried to you know stand up against the man well you know it's not oil pipelines anymore it's data centers data centers are polluting the environment they are raising
34:00people's electricity rates and And so did they just pass a law or was it just an executive order that stops local municipalities and states from regulating this kind of AI I'm not extremely familiar with the latest federal guidance on that but I know it was telegraphed by Trump that that was the plan and then I think that was also in the the big beautiful bill as it was called a line that would prevent local and state regulation. Yeah, cuz they want it the federal level and they want it to be designed with Trump's newly announced science advisers, Jimmy, who include people that have all these data centers.
34:46>> So, is there anybody in Ohio? I know Dennis Kucinich is from Ohio. Is there anybody making a stink about this or is there any kind of organizations that are pushing back in a meaningful way against this?
34:58I mean, there's some local neighbors that have organized, but you know, it it unfortunately, you know, you have the case of Wexner, for example. So, he's mainly funded the the Republican party in Ohio, but he also funds people in the Democrat party.
35:11So, it really depends on which politician isn't beholden to extremely wealthy donors in the area or, you know, isn't taking money from you know, either Wexner connected interests or big tech connected interests.
35:27Um, hopefully I'm sure there's some of them, but a lot of the state legislators, unfortunately, seem to be pretty bought out, especially if their response to all the public fear over data centers in their state is to create a commission that dispels inaccurate myths about data centers. You know, I mean, it's just like that that should be a red flag there.
35:49I'm sure there are organizations trying to do something. I know that some of the people that sued Jobs Ohio when they were created like Progress Ohio.
35:59Um, and I think there's another one called like the Project 1881 or I can't remember what it's called, but it's basically a constitutional law.
36:08Um, uh, um, in think tank or something, but they they fought against Jobs Ohio. That may be a good way to start um, you know, tackling this sort of system because it's honestly just like an absolutely insane organization that uses the liquor tax to like funnel all this dark money wherever it wants.
36:28It really should be considered unconstitutional.
36:32But I mean it's just really really up to local people seemingly at this point and some of the articles I was reading when I was writing this piece about you know local pushback to the data centers are just a regular people living in somewhat rural areas trying to organize on things like Facebook and stuff. I mean they don't really know what to do. But I commend them for trying to do something because I don't think we can just sit back and let this happen. I mean something has has to be done if you care about what's happening in your backyard and as I said you know a couple times a lot of effort is being put into making
37:10us pay attention to anywhere but here.
37:13You know.
37:13>> Mhm. And arguably by design to an extent because if the data centers are already built and all of this infrastructure is in place you know it's already there it goes live. I mean the time to complain will have passed by then.
37:26So you know now is the time to try and do something about it.
37:31So what So you it seems like Ohio is like this new kind of petri dish this testing ground for this type of thing.
37:39Um.
37:41And you know if so what early warning signs should should residents and the public be watching for?
37:50Um you know as far as these data centers moving in it usually starts with land offers from these companies. So the main one operating in the Columbus region is is Wexner's New Albany Company. They come and they offer you a price on your land that's a a bit a few percentage points over market price and then if you take the deal you have to sign a non-disclosure agreement with the New Albany Company.
38:20And then you know they they take your land and they sell it to Intel to build a giant plant that got a bunch of money from Biden's Chips Act in 2022, right?
38:29So, um basically it's the land offers is how you know they're coming in.
38:34And they don't necessarily, you know, it wasn't like Intel was knocking on doors in that area, you know, trying to buy people's lands. It's these other companies uh that are doing it. So, in this particular uh you know, in the Columbus region, it's the New Albany company, but there's other companies that are operating like this throughout uh throughout the country. Um and it would be good to, you know, shine the light on on them and let people know to not sell their land to these to these guys.
39:02Um but unfortunately, I mean, it's absolutely egregious that uh efforts have been made to prevent state or local governments from doing anything because clearly the federal government uh wants this to happen throughout the country.
39:15Um so, if they've if they've trying to take state and local uh authority to way a way to stop this kind of stuff, I mean, uh that's a huge issue. So, I think the easiest way is to try and stop new ones from being made, and a lot of that involves uh changing zoning laws and things like that. Um and then uh pay particular attention to local elections where the people that are involved in the uh on either those commissions or those city councils who make those votes, uh keep the people that are funded by by Big Tech in in by these industries out of there as much as possible. And if you don't see any that are running, maybe
39:52run yourself. I mean, what else can you do? I mean, this is something that's happening everywhere.
39:57It's not even exclusive to United States. Maybe a lot of the data center stuff uh is right now, but I don't think it'll stay there. Uh you know, this is intended to be kind of a a global system. So, you know, maybe they'll balkanize things first and and sort of decentralize to recentralize um uh at some point, but you know, the They're trying to tether all of this together and it's really time for people to, you know, pay attention to what's happening where they live and try and and stop this stuff, too.
40:31Instead of >> [clears throat] >> You know, constantly being distracted by the the latest psyop, you know, it's important to remember where you actually live and live in reality sometimes and if there's these people using your taxpayer money to to build out this stuff that's driving up your power bills, I mean I think most people in your community will agree that it's bad and will do something about it if if people get together.
41:00And so the the the new talking point from Israel-aligned journalists is that it's crazy to think that Israel got us into this war. This is the United States war and you're a you're a real jerk if you think Israel let us into this war. Have you seen that? Have you seen it's all over the place. Have you seen Have you not seen this new argument that I I'm I'm kind of glad I have I was blocked out of Twitter for like several days so I couldn't When this article came out is when it happened actually my article. So do you think I was going to ask you before we I was going to ask you what kind of pushback have you gotten
41:36about this article cuz I'm sure you got some I mean from you know, powerful people and that would be one of them.
41:42They blocked you out of Twitter.
41:44Yeah, they blocked me out of Twitter and then I got back in and then my co-author on this piece immediately after I was locked out of Twitter, he was locked out of Twitter and then we started a publishing company a few months ago and several orders of our first book were sent sent back and the author of the book thinks it's politically motivated because this has happened to him before.
42:09So maybe I don't know.
42:12It's only been out a few days and was only put out on Twitter by my account today when I could get back in. So, I mean, we'll see.
42:19>> Really? Okay. Oh, I didn't know that. Oh, wow. Okay. Well, you'll see that argument. It's going It's going all over the place right now.
42:29And I think it has something to do with Go ahead. Well, just that War on Iran has been an admitted neocon project since the Bush era. So, you know, the Trump administration in now in its second iteration, the first time they claimed they were anti-neocon and anti-endless war when they came to power. They were not. And so, now they are just doing a worse version of that because Trump doesn't have to get elected again. Yeah, it's Yeah.
42:56So, you weren't surprised at the flip-flop on people like J.D. Vance, Donald Trump and so >> No, not at all. I think they were there to try and convince people this time I won't do it because the first time they they tried to start a war with Iran by assassinating Qassem Soleimani. Salt Lake City, Las Vegas, Nevada. May 7th, it's a Thursday special show in Burbank, California. Tickets going fast. And then we're going to be in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Oklahoma City, Spokane and Tacoma. Go to jimmydore.com for a link for tickets.
43:28>> [music]
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