Sinema of the absurd
By 
HiS:
Former Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, the centrist dealmaker who wielded virtually unilateral veto power over the Biden administration’s legislative agenda, has landed on K Street.
The Arizona Democrat-turned-independent is joining the law and lobbying firm Hogan Lovells, where she will serve as a senior counsel in the global regulatory and intellectual property practice, the firm announced Monday.
HiG:
For the better part of a year, Sinema schmoozed and charmed city staffers and the seven members of the Chandler City Council. Now a senior advisor with the powerhouse Washington, D.C., lobbying firm Hogan Lovells, she traded numerous emails and arranged one-on-one meetings. The firm’s client, Active Infrastructure, wanted to build a massive new AI data center on Price and Dobson roads, and Sinema said Chandler should join the “AI revolution” by approving it.
In public appearances before the council and the city’s planning and zoning commission, she added an ominous threat: If Chandler didn’t get with the program, the Trump administration would compel the city to accept the 422,877-square-foot, energy-guzzling data center anyway.
How will he do that? Don’t ask questions, just obey! In face of such a threat the citizens of Chandler and the city council had no choice but to tell the data center to fuck off.
Sinema’s condescending tone in her public appearances galvanized opposition to the project, setting off a wave of anti-data center and anti-Sinema emails to the city council. This month, reporting by Phoenix New Times revealed the extent of Sinema’s hard sell and the “unknown” water costs of the proposed six-building development.
The final nail came Thursday night, as residents packed a city council meeting to watch the data center go down in flames in a 7-0 vote. Sinema was nowhere to be found.
Please share other stories about data centers in the comments. Here’s a bonus one from the north-east part of Indiana.
