America already learned a lesson from the Green New Deal: If an industry survives only on special favors, it isn’t ready to stand on its own.
Yet the same game is playing out again — this time for artificial intelligence. The wealthiest companies in history now demand tax breaks, zoning carve-outs, and energy favors on a scale far greater than green energy firms ever did.
Instead of slamming on the accelerator, Washington should be hitting the brakes.
If AI is truly the juggernaut its backers claim, it should thrive on its merits. Technology designed to enhance human life shouldn’t need human subsidies to survive — or to enrich its corporate patrons.
Big Tech boosters insist that we stand on the brink of artificial general intelligence, a force that could outthink and even replace humans. No one denies AI’s influence or its future promise, but does that justify the avalanche of artificial investment now driving half of all U.S. economic growth?
The Trump administration continues to hand out favors to Big Tech to fuel a bubble that may never deliver. As the Wall Street Journal’s Greg Ip pointed out earlier this month, the largest companies once dominated because their profits came from low-cost, intangible assets such as software, platforms, and network effects. Users flocked to Facebook, Google, the iPhone, and Windows, and revenue followed — with little up-front infrastructure risk.
The AI model looks nothing like that. Instead of software that scales cheaply, Big Tech is sinking hundreds of billions into land, hardware, power, and water. These hyperscale data centers devour resources with little clarity about demand.
According to Ip’s data: Between 2016 and 2023, the free cash flow and net earnings of Alphabet, Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft rose in tandem. Since 2023, however, net income is up 73% while free cash flow has dropped 30%.
“For all of AI’s obvious economic potential, the financial return remains a question mark,” Ip wrote. “OpenAI and Anthropic, the two leading stand-alone developers of large language models, though growing fast, are losing money.”
Andy Lawrence of the Uptime Institute explained the risk: “To suddenly start building data centers so much denser in power use, with chips 10 times more expensive, for unproven demand — all that is an extraordinary challenge and a gamble.”
The cracks are already beginning to show. GPT-5 has been a bust for the most part. Meta froze hiring in its AI division, with Mark Zuckerberg admitting that “improvement is slow for now.” Even TechCrunch conceded: Throwing more data and computing power at large language models won’t create a “digital god.”
Yet government keeps stepping on the gas, even as the industry stalls. The “Mag 7” companies spent $560 billion on AI-related capital expenditures in the past 18 months, while generating only $35 billion in revenue. IT consultancy Gartner projects $475 billion will be spent on data centers this year alone — a 42% jump from 2024. Those numbers make no sense without government intervention.
Consider the favors.
Rezoning laws. Data centers require sprawling land footprints. To make that possible, states and counties are bending rules never waived for power plants, roads, or bridges. Northern Virginia alone now hosts or plans more than 85 million square feet of data centers — equal to nearly 1,500 football fields. West Virginia and Mississippi have even passed laws banning local restrictions outright. Trump’s AI action plan ties federal block grants to removing zoning limits. Nothing about that is natural, balanced, fair, or free-market.
Tax exemptions. Nearly every state competing for data centers — including Virginia, Tennessee, Texas, Arizona, Georgia, Indiana, Illinois, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Nebraska — offers sweeping tax breaks. Alabama exempts data centers from sales, property, and income taxes for up to 30 years — for as few as 20 jobs. Oregon and Indiana also give property tax exemptions.
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Regulatory carve-outs. Trump’s executive order calls for easing rules under the National Environmental Policy Act, Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, and other environmental statutes. Conservatives rightly want fewer burdens across the board — but why should Big Tech’s server farms get faster relief than the power plants needed to supply them?
Federal land giveaways. The AI action plan also makes federal land available for private data centers, handing prime real estate to trillion-dollar corporations at taxpayer expense. No other industry gets this benefit.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) put it bluntly: “It’s one thing to use technology to enhance the human experience, but it’s another to have technology supplant the human experience.” Right now, AI resembles wind and solar in their early years — a speculative bubble kept alive only through taxpayer largesse.
If AI is truly the innovation its backers claim, it will thrive without zoning exemptions, tax shelters, and federal handouts. If it cannot survive without special favors, then it isn’t ready. Instead of slamming on the accelerator, Washington should be hitting the brakes.
This summer, like many Americans, I returned to my hometown.
The familiar contours of the landscape — the Great Lakes, sand dunes, and lush forests — carried with them memories not only of childhood but of something deeper: a sense of rootedness. Land is never just geography. It holds meaning. And when that meaning comes from religious devotion, religious liberty demands our respect.
Religious freedom means little if it only shields believers from fines or jail. It must also protect sacred spaces from destruction.
That is why what's happening to the Apache Stronghold — a coalition of San Carlos Apache tribal members and other Native Americans — is not just a local controversy. It's a national shame.
The United States government has approved a plan to transfer Oak Flat, a sacred site in Arizona’s Tonto National Forest, to Resolution Copper, a mining company owned in part by foreign interests, including a firm with Chinese stakeholders. Late Monday night, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals issued a temporary restraining order blocking the land exchange at Oak Flat just hours before the swap could have been completed. The panel did not address the merits of the challenge to the deal brought by a group of environmentalists, tribes, and the San Carlos Apache Tribe.
President Trump took to Truth Social, labeling those who have challenged the deal as “Anti-American.” With all due respect to the president, this temporary stay is a perfect opportunity to reassess.
For centuries, the Apache people have worshipped at Oak Flat. To build a massive copper mine here — destroying it permanently — is not only a grievous environmental affront but would erase a sacred space central to tribal faith.
A separate lawsuit highlights this latter concern.
The Apache Stronghold sued under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act and the First Amendment’s Free Exercise Clause, arguing that destroying Oak Flat is a direct, government-enabled interference with their religious exercise. But a federal court dismissed the case, claiming, incredibly, that because the land isn’t regulated for religious purposes, the government’s actions don’t count as a burden under RFRA.
That is not just a misreading of the law — it is a failure of moral clarity.
RFRA, passed in 1993 with broad bipartisan support, ensures that federal government actions burdening religious exercise face the strictest judicial scrutiny. If the law does not protect the Apache from the destruction of their most sacred site, what does it protect?
Religious freedom means little if it only shields believers from fines or jail. It must also protect sacred spaces from destruction, especially when the destruction comes at the hands of government-backed corporate interests with foreign ownership.
The injustice of Oak Flat did not go unnoticed by every member of the Supreme Court.
When the court denied review of the Apache Stronghold’s petition in May, Justice Neil Gorsuch, joined by Justice Clarence Thomas, issued a sharp dissent: “Before allowing the government to destroy the Apaches’ sacred site, this court should at least have troubled itself to hear their case.”
He is right. The court exists to safeguard rights like religious liberty, not to stand aside when those rights are bulldozed — literally.
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Now, the Apache Stronghold has filed a petition for rehearing, citing the court’s decision earlier this summer in Mahmoud v. Taylor.
In Mahmoud, the court sided with parents of faith who sought to opt their children out of exposure to Pride storybooks, a collection of sexually charged books they believed violated their religious beliefs. The ruling affirmed that government cannot force individuals to choose between a public benefit and adherence to their faith.
If that principle protects religious families from coerced participation in a school program, surely it should protect the Apache people from the obliteration of their most sacred worship site.
To its credit, the Trump administration acted to root out anti-Christian bias in the federal government. That commitment should now extend to protecting the Apache people’s religious exercise. This is not about favoring one faith over another. It's about honoring the American promise that no faith is too small to matter and no people too powerless to be heard.
Religious liberty is not a gift from the government. It is a right bestowed by our Creator and safeguarded under the law. While political trends rise and fall, the land endures — and with it our responsibility as stewards. We are entrusted with the care of this beautiful nation, not just for its economic potential but for its deeper meaning.
Oak Flat is not a relic. It is a living testament to a people’s enduring faith. Its destruction would not just scar the landscape — it would scar the conscience of the nation.
There is still time to change course.
The Ninth Circuit may grant relief in the case alleging environment harms. The administration can halt the transfer. And the American people can raise their voices in defense of a principle older than the republic: that some places are sacred and some values are not for sale.
Let us be the kind of nation that hears the cry of people of faith, even when it rises from the mountains of Arizona, even when it does not look or sound like our own. Let us be a people who understand that land is more than property — that it can be sacred ground.
“They’re coming home — they’re all coming home.”
That’s how President Donald Trump described Apple’s decision to invest $600 billion in the American economy, $100 billion more than initially expected.
For decades, corporate America packed up and left. Under President Trump, companies are coming back.
Standing alongside Apple CEO Tim Cook, President Trump declared: “These investments will directly create more than 20,000 brand-new American jobs and many thousands more at Apple suppliers like Corning, Broadcom, Texas Instruments, and Samsung.”
This is proof that the America First agenda is working.
America First isn’t just a campaign slogan. It’s a movement rooted in economic patriotism. For decades, global corporations were incentivized to offshore jobs and close American factories, leaving once-thriving towns in economic ruin.
President Trump is reversing that damage. His America First agenda creates the conditions for companies to thrive here at home — cutting taxes, slashing red tape, rebuilding infrastructure, and putting American workers first in trade deals and policy decisions.
Apple’s investment is just the latest example. From Silicon Valley to the Rust Belt, companies are responding favorably to the president’s policies, which are rewarding their investments on U.S. soil.
In the past six months alone, more than $17 trillion in new investment, factories, and infrastructure projects have been announced. From semiconductor plants in Arizona to advanced steel manufacturing in Pennsylvania, we are witnessing the rebirth of American manufacturing.
And America First doesn’t stop at building new factories. It also means building the capacity to win strategic fights — including the tech war with China.
One example is the Trump administration’s recent decision toheed U.S. intelligence experts and greenlight the merger between Hewlett Packard Enterprise and Juniper Networks.
For years, national security experts have warned about Huawei, the Chinese tech giant with deep ties to the Chinese Communist Party. Huawei’s global dominance in 5G and enterprise networking poses a serious threat to cybersecurity, national defense, and communications freedom. The problem wasn’t identifying the threat. The problem was that no U.S. company could match Huawei — that is, until now. Trump and Attorney General Pam Bondi are helping the U.S. finally compete in this industry.
Another example is President Trump’s executive order jump-starting America’s rare-earth and critical mineral supply chains — an industry China has dominated for years. From electric vehicles to advanced weapons systems, the modern economy runs on rare-earths. Yet for too long, America depended on Chinese exports to power everything from smartphones to fighter jets.
That is changing under President Trump, who signed an executive order cutting red tape, fast-tracking permits, and directing federal agencies to prioritize American sourcing and refining of rare-earth and critical minerals. As a result, U.S. companies are now increasingly investing in domestic mining operations in America, laying the foundation for greater American economic independence.
In June, Trump even signed an agreement with China to resume exports of U.S. rare-earth minerals. The global tide on U.S. exports is now turning.
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America First means just that: America first. Whether it’s encouraging companies such as Apple to invest here at home or ensuring that U.S. tech companies can go toe to toe with China, President Trump is delivering real results.
For decades, corporate America packed up and left. Under President Trump, companies are coming back. They’re investing in our people, our cities, and our future. That’s not just good policy. That’s what winning looks like.
Police in Phoenix, Arizona, told KSAZ-TV they responded Thursday afternoon to a parking lot of a business near 24th and Madison Streets regarding multiple children inside a vehicle that was not running.
Police told the station it was about 104 degrees outside at the time — and around 125 degrees inside the car.
After Largo reportedly exited the shop through the back door, officers asked if the car was his, and he shook his head 'no.'
Police added to KSAZ that the car was locked and its windows were rolled up, but they were able to gain entry and secure four children — ages 2, 3, 4, and 7 — who were placed into an air-conditioned police SUV and given water.
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Police told the station that all of the children's internal temperature readings were near 100 degrees. Phoenix Police Sgt. Rob Scherer added to KSAZ that the children showed "signs of distress" such as bright-red skin and sweating: "Clearly, the heat was affecting the children."
After the children were taken to a hospital, police said they found the children's father — 38-year-old Ascencio Largo — "inside of a nearby business. It was later learned that Largo entered this business just short of an hour prior to police arrival on scene," KSAZ reported.
Court documents allege that Largo was inside an adult store called the Adult Shoppe, the station said.
After Largo reportedly exited the shop through the back door, officers asked if the car was his, and he shook his head "no," KTVK-TV reported, citing court papers. But officers followed him, and there were police and fire trucks near the Nissan — and Largo remarked, “Oh, s**t," KTVK added.
"The facts of the scenario, as alleged by the police, are rather shocking," Maricopa County Commissioner Jane McLaughlin said during Largo's court appearance, according to KSAZ. "The police allege that they went into the store, called out many times. Nobody came out. And they allege that when you came out, you attempted to pretend like it wasn't your car. It just indicates a strong level of reckless culpability of knowing. It's difficult to say that anybody who grew up in Arizona doesn't know that children and dogs die in closed cars."
What's more, court documents also note that police smelled alcohol on Largo, KSAZ said, adding that his driver's license has an ignition interlock restriction — but his car did not have the device.
McLaughlin added that "what the police are alleging could have resulted in, you know, the kind of story that gets picked up on international newswires: 'Man goes into porno store leaving his four children to die in their car,'" KSAZ reported.
Largo is facing eight felony child abuse and endangerment charges, KTVK reported. According to KSAZ, they break down to four counts of child abuse and four counts of endangerment.
The state asked for a $50,000 bond, citing Largo’s previous criminal history, which includes a prior extreme DUI, according to KTVK.
Largo is ordered to stay away from his children if he posts bail, which was set at $5,000, KTVK said, adding that a judge said they were under the care of their mother.
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A woman in Arizona was sentenced to 102 month in prison for conspiring with North Korean entities to infiltrate American companies.
Her methods are being considered a "code red" by U.S. Attorney Jeanine Ferris Pirro, as American companies are unknowingly aiding North Korea in a tech war against the United States.
Christina Chapman, 50, was found to be working on behalf of the North Korean munitions development department, using a complex network of stolen identities in a scheme that is sure to send chills down the spine of any American.
'This is a code red. Your tech sectors are being infiltrated by North Korea.'
Chapman set up a network of almost 100 laptops at her home in Arizona, designed to allow North Korean agents to log in to the computers and pose as Americans working U.S. companies.
Using the fraudulent identities of 68 Americans, the North Koreans acquired remote employment with 309 companies, some of which were Fortune 500 companies.
Simply put, the North Korean entities would remotely access the computers in Chapman's home, then fraudulently infiltrate the companies they were purporting to work at, making it seem as if the activity was coming from an Arizona address.
Many of the foreign agents listed their home addresses as Chapman's residence and received paychecks at her address. This resulted in huge sums of money going directly to the North Korean government.
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In total, Chapman helped procure $17 million for the North Korean munitions department and will be forced to pay a fine of $176,850 and forfeit over $284,000 that was to be paid to the North Koreans, according to the Department of Justice.
"North Korea's munition department has trained and deployed more than 3,000 workers in information technology, or IT skills, so that they can then commit fraud on companies in the United States to generate revenue for the North Korean regime," Pirro stated during a press conference on Friday.
In a "message to corporate America," Pirro continued, "This is a code red. Your tech sectors are being infiltrated by North Korea. And when big companies are lax and they're not doing their due diligence, they are putting America's security at risk."
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Photos from the DOJ showed not only an example of one of the fraudulent identities but also Chapman's remote worker farm. Dozens of laptops are seen, with notes denoting which U.S. companies they are assigned to and the fake identities they are associated with.
Pirro called on American corporations to step up their employee verification systems, which "went through a change as a result of COVID."
"There is this lax kind of overseeing of who employees are. It's time for businesses to verify their workers, monitor their conduct, create a zero-trust structure, and they've got to do this before the security of our country is compromised," Pirro added.
More than 90 laptops were seized from Chapman's home in October 2023. She was also found to have shipped 49 laptops and other devices supplied by U.S. companies to different locations overseas, including to Chinese cities on the North Korean border.
The DOJ noted that North Korea's IT network has generated between $250 and $600 million annually as of 2024.
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Each Independence Day, Prescott, Arizona — a Western city with roughly 47,000 people that still feels like a small-town haven — erupts with vibrant fireworks, the thunder of the rodeo, and parades that fill the streets with Americans waving the Stars and Stripes in celebration of the nation they hold dear.
Located approximately two hours north of Phoenix in Yavapai County, far from Arizona's urban sprawl, Prescott stands firm as a defender of traditional values. Faith, family, and love of country are central to the town's July Fourth celebrations, which extend over the week.
'And to play good country patriotic songs at this event in front of the entire town ... makes my soul shine!'
Some of those festivities include a spectacular fireworks show at the town's beautiful Watson Lake and the Annual Whiskey Row Boot Race, where kids and adults put on their cowboy boots for a Western-spirited dash.
John Heiney, communications outreach manager for the city of Prescott, told Blaze News, "Events in Prescott, specifically for the Fourth of July, bring residents out and visitors to our destination from miles away. Not only do we get to celebrate the 249th anniversary of our country, but we get to celebrate the freedom, beauty, and wonders of our destination. Tourism is the heartbeat of our community, and having a holiday to celebrate with our neighbors and visitors is something we look forward to year after year."
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The World's Oldest Rodeo is arguably the town's most notable event during the week of Independence Day. This year, from June 30 through July 6, Prescott Frontier Days will host several traditional rodeo performances and "Mutton Bustin' Competitions," where young cowboys and cowgirls ride sheep to compete for a gold belt buckle.
The town's Depot Marketplace serves as the venue for rodeo dances, where attendees can enjoy country music performances by "Lonesome Valley," a band led by one of Prescott's most well-known musicians, Sky "Daddy" Conwell.
'The tradition runs deep!'
Conwell told Blaze News, "This is the third year we played at this historic event," adding that he feels "blessed, honored, and humbled" to be a part of it.
"For a small town, Prescott has many amazing musicians and bands, and that they chose us this year makes me smile ear to ear. I've been smiling from the time I got the news!" Conwell said. "And to play good country patriotic songs at this event in front of the entire town (and cowboys and cowgirls from all over the state who always make the trek here for July 4) makes my soul shine!"
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The Kiwanis Club of Prescott, chartered 101 years ago, will put on the Kiwanis Kiddie Parade during the annual Prescott Frontier Days celebration.
Jim Tilley, the president of the Kiwanis Club of Prescott and a local veterinarian, told Blaze News that this Fourth of July marks the 84th year of the kids' parade, the local club's oldest continuous project.
Approximately 800 children, ages 12 and under, are expected to participate in this year's event, wearing Western and patriotic costumes. Those with the most star-spangled outfits and floats can win prizes.
Tilley said, "Kiwanis members and townspeople alike take delight in seeing the smiles on the kids' faces as they walk behind an official police escort in their own downtown. Many of the parents bringing their children reminisce about walking in the Kiddie Parade themselves when they were kids. The tradition runs deep!"
All of the winners of the children's parade are invited to ride on the Kiwanis float in the rodeo parade the following day — the event's 138th annual parade, described as a "wonderful tradition that celebrates our rich Western history."
As part of the annual Independence Day celebrations, the Prescott Firefighter's Charities hosts the Hose Cart Races, which originated in the late 1800s as a rivalry between the two hose cart companies before the arrival of fire engines in the 1920s.
'I looked forward to watching him!'
First responders — including firefighters, police officers, and ambulance crew — and their immediate family members are invited to participate in the event, where they race against an opposing team. The challenge involves wheeling historic hose carts to a water source, connecting to a hydrant, and turning on the water to knock down the rival's cone.
Amy Seets, the vice president of the PFFC and chair of the Hose Cart Races, told Blaze News that the competition is an event that the entire community eagerly anticipates each year.
"When my son was in high school, he was a [Prescott Fire Department] cadet and looked forward all year to competing on the PFD Cadet hose cart team," she said. "I looked forward to watching him! As an adult, after he came home from the Army, he went to work for Prescott Fire and was back competing in the hose cart races every year, and I still couldn't wait to watch."
Seets explained that the event pays tribute to history and tradition while connecting the community with their local first responders.
Pastor Dale Partridge, the lead pastor of Prescott's King's Way Reformed Church, described the Fourth of July celebrations as a "big moment to remind the nation who we are and who we were."
'It's driven by the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments.'
"We just want to figure out a way that we can engage in any way to help the nation remember that we were founded as a Christian nation," he told Blaze News. "We've taken that position to be engaged, especially on events that are going down downtown with a patriotic tone."
Partridge's church prioritizes remaining active in the Prescott community, upholding the principle that freedom demands stewardship of the sacred values of liberty.
Last year, the church participated in the annual rodeo parade, playing patriotic country music while carrying a large banner and signs reading, "Christ is King."
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"There seems to be more patriotism that is driven by Christianity," he explained. "It's driven by the moral law of God, the Ten Commandments. It's driven by scripture in the Bible."
This faith-first spirit permeates Prescott's celebrations, uniting families and churches in gratitude for God-given freedoms.
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As the week's Fourth of July festivities wind down, the rodeo grounds host Cowboy Church on Sunday, where worshippers gather to praise the Lord and reflect on the blessings of liberty, a fitting capstone to a week rooted in devotion.
In Prescott, Arizona, the Fourth of July celebrations symbolize enduring values that define America. As the fireworks fade over the town's lake, the flame of liberty continues to burn bright.
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'The longer the County’s elections are unlawfully administered, the greater the risk of a catastrophic failure, voter disenfranchisement, and litigation over election mishaps.'
Josh Kaul and his leftist lawfare buddies targeting 2020 alternate electors know the process is the punishment.
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