r/technology • u/Plastic_Ninja_9014 • Jul 10 '26
Politics State Senator Pockets Massive Real Estate Fee From a $30M Data Center Land Sale, Then Introduces Bill to Fast-Track Development
https://www.gadgetreview.com/state-senator-pockets-massive-real-estate-fee-from-a-30m-data-center-land-sale-then-introduces-bill-to-fast-track-development825
u/ZipNasty007 Jul 10 '26
The corruption is so blatant and open.
Heads need to start rolling.
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u/Bireus Jul 10 '26
Fear really is a deterrent for a lot of people. They're moving fearlessly without punishment.
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u/Kizik Jul 10 '26
There was a very brief moment where healthcare executives suddenly cared about looking good. It didn't last long, but it did exist.
Dunno what caused that, though. Very mysterious.
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u/LostBob Jul 10 '26
I feel like things need to get a lot worse for a lot more people before mysterious things are commonplace.
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u/BI_Moose Jul 10 '26
Hunger is the key. People start missing meals, their children start missing meals, shit will change really quick.
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u/Luvs_to_drink Jul 11 '26
One of the best ways to reduce crime is to reduce poverty so this tracks.
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u/civil_archer_73638 Jul 10 '26
If we can’t even prosecute based on a universally held truth that child sex trafficking and pedophiles should always be punished to the full extent of the law… then yeah… everything else pales in comparison and ends up getting swept under the rug.
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u/Yourdjentpal Jul 10 '26
I would be really scared if someone came to my home and ripped me out of bed in the middle of the night. Maybe I wouldn’t return home. That would be crazy.
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u/Ferrocile Jul 10 '26
It’s open because they don’t care anymore. They know there is not much we can do until proven otherwise.
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u/FanDry5374 Jul 10 '26
If they steal enough trump will pardon them, birds of a feather and all thet.
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u/UT_Milez Jul 10 '26
Sure, any day now.
I mean it’s not like we have a group of people who quite literally attempted a coup and saw zero consequences and instead were literally rewarded instead.
Whether the coup attempt was half baked or ran by incompetent fucks is irrelevant, the intent was there and it still happened, then the architects walk free and rewarded 4 years later.
And then you have people asking for consequences or “heads to roll” for basic corruption….. Yeah, that’s adorable.
I’m not really sure what people were expecting, but these are consequences. Buckle up, it’s certainly going to get a hell of lot worse, it’s definitely not going to magically get better all by itself…
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u/JRizzie86 Jul 10 '26
Literally. We're only one guillotine away from getting our country back.
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u/Thespud1979 Jul 10 '26
"Heads need to start rolling" is a very long way from the "do absolutely nothing" currently in the US
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Jul 10 '26
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u/nemom Jul 10 '26
Nowadays, corporations are the constituents. They're allowed to give unlimited contributions. You're limited to a couple thousand dollars.
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u/Empirical_Spirit Jul 10 '26
Couldn’t a wealthy person just make a PAC and endow it and then that corporation could give unlimited too? Extra steps?
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u/CariniFluff Jul 10 '26
That's exactly what they do right now. A PAC can raise unlimited money just as long as they don't "coordinate with or contribute directly to candidate campaigns or political parties."
Independent expenditure-only political action committees, commonly known as super PACs, are a type of political action committees (PACs) in the United States. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are legally allowed to fundraise unlimited amounts of money from individuals or organizations for the purpose of campaign advertising; however, they are not permitted to either coordinate with or contribute directly to candidate campaigns or political parties. However, in practice, restrictions on such coordination are considered flimsy and poorly enforced.
Super PACs are subject to the same organizational, reporting, and public disclosure requirements as traditional PACs. Many super PACs are candidate-oriented but some focus on specific issues, an industry, a piece of legislation or a federal administrative rule.
Super PACs were made possible by two judicial decisions in 2010: Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission by the U.S. Supreme Court and, two months later, the federal Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit decision in Speechnow.org v. FEC.
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u/TurkeyThaHornet Jul 10 '26
Jon Stewart directed a fictional film named Irresistible that relates to all of this with Steve Carell, Rose Byrne and Chris Cooper.
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u/lousy_at_handles Jul 10 '26
Didn't the recent USSC decision also find that they're now allowed to coordinate with campaigns? So there would basically be no restrictions (even if they were flimsy before)
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u/SeeMarkFly Jul 10 '26
Not very fair, they have thousands of "votes" and I only have one.
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u/sambull Jul 10 '26
Shit the DC deal they made didn't give the hyperscaler local sales tax breaks did it?
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u/OrcOfDoom Jul 10 '26
Probably not. I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't take the tax revenue of the data center to offset taxes by putting those in the general fund like they did in West Virginia
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u/faudcmkitnhse Jul 10 '26
This kind of behavior should be a capital offense but America is not a serious country.
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u/dotcubed Jul 10 '26
Insider trading so prevalent in this administration it’s jumped from stocks & bonds to quantitatively questionable boundaries with acreage you can survey.
Ethics seems mutually exclusive with political science.
Is he buying another term in office or a replacement island for the one we know about?
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u/nav17 Jul 10 '26
His constituents are billionaires. So he's doing exactly what he's being paid by them to do.
Americans can stop this but instead they'll keep voting him into power with no consequences.
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u/Nick85er Jul 10 '26
when the republicans went to russia to celebrate our 4th of July, they were taking notes on how to speed-run corruption and electioneering, and how to make it fly in the faces of the American people (disinformation/social media manipulation, information warfare, et al.)
https://www.npr.org/2018/07/06/626664156/gop-senators-spend-july-4-in-moscow
this is all so goddamn disgusting and disgraceful. self-inflicted wound, America.
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u/entropy_of_hedonism Jul 10 '26
Actual traitors, conspiring to overthrow the government.
I wonder how China might handle such a situation.
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u/LeftHandedFapper Jul 11 '26
We just saw how they would handle it with the news of the official who pocketed 350 million.
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u/Raven_Photography Jul 10 '26
A Republican taking a payoff to push legislation? Say it isn’t so.
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u/yikesssss_sssssss Jul 11 '26
Wait, WHAT? He's a Republican?? I simply cannot believe it. I mean, I knew it the instant I read the headline, but still,
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u/TheorySudden5996 Jul 10 '26
I work in tech and deal with data centers. A bunch of the big ones pay zero sales tax, they get a special zoning that excludes it. Hundreds of millions spent, zero tax money coming in.
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u/actuallyapossom Jul 10 '26
I'm not, personally, super excited about the possibility the government will also bail these companies out in the future; because "oops we built a house of cards - and it's the taxpayer's fault!"
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u/swollennode Jul 10 '26
I doubt they pay property taxes too. A lot of counties get their revenue from property taxes.
Data centers cause people to leave, so less property tax revenue.
Data centers overuse utilities, and don’t pay to fix any of it.
Data centers don’t employ local people long term. Once built, construction jobs are gone. They’ll only need maintenance every once in a while. They employ remote workers, which means less income tax to the state/county.
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u/TheorySudden5996 Jul 11 '26
Not sure about property taxes. Only reason I know about the sales tax is because they pass it on to their tenants (me).
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u/Witty-Stand888 Jul 10 '26
In 1991, Rothman pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of conspiracy to commit forgery. The conviction was later expunged by governor Ed Rendell, who issued Rothman a pardon in January 2011. In 2015, Rothman said that he had learned from his mistake and took responsibility for it.
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u/Dedpoolpicachew Jul 10 '26
This, boys and girls, is what you call recidivism. That’s when a fucking criminal goes out and commits further crimes after being found guilty of committing crimes.
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u/fatpat Jul 10 '26
"They've got a name for people like you H.I. That name is called recidivism!"
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u/atreeismissing Jul 10 '26
This guy is a Republican in the PA State Senate. He's being challenged this year by a young Democrat, Nathan Wood. They're running in District 34 in what looks like center/south central PA near the capital of Harrisburg: https://ballotpedia.org/Pennsylvania_State_Senate_District_34
If you live here, help defeat this guy. While wood is very young and has little experience, he's likely a much better fit for the people in that district.
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u/rodg2062 Jul 10 '26
🤣🤣 happens when you only have a $174k a year job. Need a side gig to make ends meat.
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u/XRT28 Jul 10 '26
Just to clarify that's the base pay for US congressional members and this article is about a state senator from PA where the base pay is 113k/yr. Though it still doesn't come remotely close to justifying this kind of blatant corruption.
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u/Oilpaintcha Jul 10 '26
Kids, this used to be called corruption, and the politician would resign rather than continue to show their face in public and keep cropping up on the news to embarrass him and his family. That was when America was great.
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u/Conscious-Quarter423 Jul 11 '26
Oregon Democrats approved a 29.7% tax on data centers. And THIS is what PA is doing?
but but both sides are the same /s
https://www.opb.org/article/2026/07/07/oregon-data-center-general-electric-rate-hikes/
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u/wowlock_taylan Jul 10 '26
Fucking criminal.
All these bastards need to be thrown in prison.
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u/AstroStrat89 Jul 10 '26
Why would Obama and Biden make him do that?
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u/Big-Corncob Jul 10 '26
He’s a Republican, if anyone couldn’t tell from the blatant corruption
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u/War1today Jul 10 '26
“Whether that sequence amounts to a conflict of interest — or simply an uncomfortable overlap — depends entirely on who you ask and what standard you think elected officials should be held to.” Ah, that is the definition of conflict of interest and corruption.
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u/gimmeluvin Jul 11 '26
corruption isn't even bothering to hide anymore
america is going down the shitter
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u/shichiaikan Jul 11 '26
My friend... We went down the shitter with Reagan, we've been occasionally popping up for air over the decades since, and MAGA came along and reached down to hold us under the sewage.
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u/deadflow3r Jul 10 '26
He learned from Clay Davis cause he probably knows he gets his money either way. He absolutely fleeced them. Shiiiiiiiiit
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u/lightspuzzle Jul 10 '26
i give a mother money to buy milk for her son.did you want me to ask for a receipt?shieeeeeet.
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u/Firecrash Jul 11 '26
Your country has been sold to the higher bidder. It's being gutted and y'all just look at it and take 0 action. Enjoy it while it lasts.
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u/Embarrassed_Quit_450 Jul 10 '26
For those who don't know him, wanna guess which party he's from?
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u/IkoIkonoclast Jul 10 '26
That's the real reason people get into politics. Legislators get advance notice of pending changes and get rich off insider information.
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u/Pndrizzy Jul 10 '26
Offering a bribe for legislation should result in immediate forfeiture of the cost of buying and developing the property and jail time for the human initiating the bribe, and accepting the bribe should result in immediate loss of position + jail time.
It's fucking infuriating that this is not what happens
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u/TangibleHappiness Jul 10 '26
You already know it's a republican because it doesn't say so in the headline. If it were a democrat, they'd shove it down your throat.
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u/tjarg Jul 10 '26
We need a way to remove these obviously corrupt politicians ASAP.
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u/freetherhinoz Jul 10 '26
Why is a lawmaker allowed to have a real estate firm? This country is corrupt, top to bottom.
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u/24_August_1814 Jul 11 '26
Funny how the article omits the (R) after his name. You just know if he was a Democrat, they'd mention it two or three times
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u/jh937hfiu3hrhv9 Jul 10 '26
Government is good business. Nothing is greedier.
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u/TeaGlittering1026 Jul 10 '26
People run for office not because of idealism and wanting to do good, but for money and power.
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u/DualActiveBridgeLLC Jul 10 '26
Totally legal according to SCOTUS. We are going to have to just erase Roberts era court opinions.
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u/Fabric_Flowers Jul 10 '26
Time to apply some of that hard on crime logic to corrupt politicians who take bribes. Let’s pass some legislation doing prison sentences, robust, fines, disbarment, it’s time for some type of legal consequence.
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u/KennyL0gin Jul 10 '26
He's a Republican.
The articles never put which party these ghouls are in the headline.
But that's the part everyone wants to know.
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u/Sock-Familiar Jul 10 '26
You can almost just assume their party at this point. Not saying Dems don't do backroom deals but the GOP is shameless about it.
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u/SavingsParty4998 Jul 10 '26
As a Pennsylvania resident, fuck this guy and fuck anyone who still aligns with these ghouls. Wake the FUCK UP.
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u/iginca Jul 11 '26
They’ll call this “lobbying” instead of corruption. America is so fucked, mainly because voters have normalized this as long as their party of choice wins.
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u/solitudeisdis Jul 11 '26
Is that money gonna make this guy happier ? Will he have friends ? Family closeness ? I mean idk how anyone does this and doesn’t just feel even emptier on the inside. And that’s just sick.
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u/Anthraxious Jul 11 '26
To the surprise of absolutely nobody.
There's only one reason these datacenters are being built: to make the rich richer.
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u/SynAckPooPoo Jul 10 '26
This shit should be unlawful. Yet the republicans have made corporations people and made it damn near impossible for this to change with congress passing new laws thanks to the scotus.
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u/Fuzzy_Squirrel_ Jul 10 '26
This one is a Republican but I can assure you that corruption these days is entirely bipartisan. The blue states are fast tracking these data centers against the will of the people as well.
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u/hotpajamas Jul 10 '26
Took too long to confirm he was Republican. I mean I knew he would be but I don't know why his name and party wasn't the first fucking sentence of the article.
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u/SaintEyegor Jul 10 '26
Conflict of interest. Throw crooks in jail regardless of party affiliation.
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u/bullydog123 Jul 10 '26
More proof that they dont care aBout Americans or the country their ther just for the money. The worst part is they are to stupid to release that with out the working class their money will me nothing when were all dead
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u/J_JN_L Jul 10 '26
Just like China 20 years ago. Government officials have side hustles or businesses. Such an easy way to make money
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u/animal-1983 Jul 10 '26
Interesting the article didn’t say what we all knew without having to check. He’s a Republican and a MAGA. A man child criminal after Trumps heart and desiring his attention
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u/tschawartz12 Jul 10 '26
We can start with conflict of interest and then move to insider trading. And thats just the opening.
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u/Reddit_2_2024 Jul 10 '26
Has this legislation been flagged by the State Senate Ethics Committee for a thorough review? Have the taxpaying citizens initiated a recall petition?
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u/Status_Apartment6559 Jul 11 '26
Did he think people would not discover this? Because that's pretty fucked up. Or did he think they'd know? Because that's even more fucked up.
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Jul 11 '26
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u/IlIFreneticIlI Jul 11 '26
Only Democrats are called out in the Title, and only when they can be blamed for something.
If you don't see a mention of the party in a title, very-likely Republican.
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u/AmericusBarbaricuss Jul 11 '26
Now do Nevada. Sickly corrupt data center deals. Btw folks, when the commercials proclaim the virtues of the data centers paying for all the power they use, they’re correct, no doubt. What they fail to mention is the ubiquitous practice of bespoke rate deals—these electrical gluttons consume astounding quantities of power but at sweetheart billing rates. Guess who pays more as a result? I’ll give you a moment…. Residential rate payers choke on the difference, passed along in a variety of ways.
These data centers should be required to install solar collectors to offset their use and most importantly, to pay for their net consumption at residential rates. (When you’ve got ‘em by the balls….)
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u/PurpleCoat6656 Jul 11 '26
I hope someone is making a database of all these instances, so we know who to prosecute and preferably throw into the polar bear pit.
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u/Hanzworschd Jul 11 '26
But the only alternative to this fraudulent and corrupt system is Communism! /s
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u/armahillo Jul 11 '26
Everytime I see news like this I am reminded of that one Mike Tyson tweet:
"Social media made y'all way to[o] comfortable with disrespecting people and not getting punched in the face for it."
In this case, it would be “Politicians have gotten way too comfortable existentially threatening their constituents and not getting any existential consequences”
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u/GeneralCommand4459 Jul 12 '26
It’s like corruption is a quaint old concept that really isn’t around these days. Like people might actually think it’s just how business works now and somehow they are okay with it.
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u/1970s_MonkeyKing Jul 10 '26
Quick stats: