Bribery of a lawmaker used to be a straightforward retail transaction between the special interest briber and a specific bribee. But the Silicon Valley billionaires now invading rural America with hundreds of their exploitative AI data centers are out to buy state lawmakers in bulk.

Instead of slipping cash-filled envelopes to individual politicos, tech giants like Amazon, Meta and OpenAI, are putting up hundreds of millions of dollars in this spring's midterm elections to pay for the campaigns of candidates who pledge to back their intrusive, water-sucking, energy-wasting AI schemes. For example, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta, has two super-PACs doling out $65 million to state and local politicians who will oppose any regulation of sprawling data centers he wants to impose on rural Texas and Illinois.

Why such a barrage of corporate money in local legislative races? Because the countryside is aflame with fury that arrogant, avaricious AI profiteers think they're entitled to walk over local communities — so these locals are demanding that their legislators regulate or even ban AI data centers.

Unable (or unwilling) to win political support honestly, the corporate giants intend to overpower the democratic will of the people by effectively bribing submissive legislators with campaign cash — or by funding opponents for lawmakers who refuse to be bought.

Of course, bribers and bribees alike will piously pretend that the corporate ruse of buying government policy by buying legislative seats is technically not a bribe. But hello — rigging the system so billionaire donors can crush local democracy is not a "technicality." If it looks, smells and has the impact of a bribe ... it is one.

WHY SHOULD CHUCK SCHUMER CHOOSE MAINE'S US SENATOR?

The Democratic Party establishment is rolling out its arsenal of big funders and political consultants, trying to defeat... Democrats.

Huh? Yes, led by Sen. Chuck "Don't-Rock-the-Corporate-Boat" Schumer, the party's Washington hierarchy has been working to eliminate upstart Democratic contenders who are unabashedly progressive and popular! These candidates are generating new grassroots energy and hope for the party by bluntly challenging Washington's meek, business-as-usual politics that Schumer embodies.

Pundits say Democrats need to find candidates who can appeal to workers. Well, here's one who is full-blooded working class: Graham Platner. A 41-year-old military combat veteran, Platner is a plain-spoken oyster farmer who's running right at "the oligarchy — the billionaires who pay for it and the politicians who sell us out." Platner's fiery populist spirit has sparked statewide grassroots support, volunteers, funding and enthusiasm that Maine Democrats have not had in years.

But, uninvited, here came Chuck — lugging his ponderous wet blanket of high-dollar corporate politics to the state. Trying to stop a real democrat from being the party's nominee, Schumer recruited Maine's lame-duck, milquetoast governor to run against Platner, knowing she would not challenge the corporate order. He raised truckloads of corporate cash for her, hoping to suffocate the oysterman's populist uprising.

But by assaulting Platner with a barrage of out-of-state corporate money, Schumer and his hand-picked candidate are actually assaulting the "little-d," working-class democrats who've rallied to the maverick. Attacking your own constituents is an odd strategy and sure enough, it doesn't seem to be selling in Maine — a recent poll of likely Democratic voters shows Platner with a 38-point lead over Schumer's choice to be Maine's senator.

To find out more about Jim Hightower and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators webpage at www.creators.com.

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