What Happened to the 'Red Wave' We Were Promised? — with State Sen. Arthur Orr - 8-14-26

News Talk 770 a.m. 92.5 FM, WVN. Dale Jackson here with you. Thank you so very much for joining us. We always appreciate you taking the time to talk with us, spend some time with us, and have some conversation with us, the hard conversations that we have on this program every single day. I am Dale Jackson. Bugsie is here with us. We'll have yaffy with us in the next hour as long as well as awesome. But right now on the Alabama A&M, $350 million Bulldog Hotline. We have State Senator Arthur Orr who joins us because last week he was in the Bahamas or something doing Bahamas type things or something. That's what I assume he was up to because he didn't call us or tell us he wasn't going to be here. But we'll forgive him for that and bring him back on the program here. But you can learn more about Alabama A&M at AAMU.edu. Go see them soon. Let's talk to Senator Orr on the Alabama A&M $350 Bulldog Hotline. Senator Orr, today's question of the day is simple. AI. What do you use it for daily? Or what do you use it for at all? What do you do you use it at all? Senator Orr, good morning. What do you use AI for? Good morning, Mr. Jackson, and my apologies for last week. Unfortunately, I wasn't in the Bahamas. Maybe wish I were, but was not. So anyway, here with you this week. And, you know, what I use AEI for on a daily basis, I probably enter how great is Dale Jackson, and it just keeps getting better and better as far as the results. But other than that, just general questions that I have where it picks up. where the old Google search didn't use to search all the various websites for a particular answer, but now using AI, that's what I'm able to do. And it certainly comes in handy. I really appreciate having that good information at the fingertips. You know, it's funny you mention that because I think a lot of people do the exact same. I think AI has, in fact, replaced the Google search. I think that's true. I think that's exactly what it's generally being used for because people know that if they go to it, it will gather all the links and stuff. And also there's less ads and stuff on there. It doesn't give you bad. They have checked this information. But yeah, I think it's better than a Google search at this point. Why do you think so many people hate it? I think it's fear of the unknown. Granted, I'm certainly a dilettante, as far as the knowledge of AI and what it can do, but I think fear of the unknown and you read articles about how it'll become like the 2001 Space Odyssey, how the old computer that takes over.

starts telling the humans what to do kind of thing. So I think that's the concern. And then, you know, you see Dale this. The cyber hack of water facilities around the country here recently, I'm sure AI was probably used for some of that and that where the, you know, the hackers were able to get into various municipal water systems in the country and shut off the water. Imagine if that happened on a national scale. And that's something that, you know, that. understandably, people are concerned about, and AI is probably playing a role in the hacker's ability to get into past defenses of various entities and get in there and start controlling things. And that's a bit scary. Yeah, you want to talk about how out of touch Senator Orr is on this. Just think the movie he referenced is over like 50 years old when there's been like a billion movies you could in Terminator. It would have been a better one. Okay. Well, I watched the Terminator 2, but I remember they all computer as a kid watching that Face Odyssey. By the way, Terminator 2 is one of the best movies ever made. I know we were talking about the first Terminator 2, but Terminator 2 is one of the best movies ever made. All right. Moving on. Data Centers, AI, all this other stuff is playing a huge role. in Alabama elections. I think it's a moral panic. We've talked about this before, but I just want to, is it, is it becoming the issue as dumb as that? God, it sounds so stupid, but it is like it is becoming the issue. Doug Jay Jones brought up. The other day, he was just spitballing and he was clearly just grasping for stuff. He got into the school choice conversation, which we can talk about here in a minute. But. Those are his two issues right now. His two issues are school choice and data centers. And Tommy Tuberville's like, no, screw that. We're building a million data centers. And if you don't like that, then you're dumb. And it's like, okay, dude, chill out a little bit. But that's basically his argument. Is that happening in another race or is that solely in the governor's race? No, well, I think it polls well. So therefore, you know, the politicians are going to talk about it. When I say it polls well, there's going back to AI. There's a real fear of the unknown. Now, it's very well known to those individuals where it's happening in their community. Like you and I have discussed, I have one, a crypto mining facility.

popping up in the very, well, outside of the very small town of Somerville in rural Morgan County, and where people live all around the 15-acre site that this company is buying and putting a 10-acre building on. And there's some real concern there, and rightly so. And I think for local governments not to have any control over where these data centers or crypto mining facilities go, I think we have certainly something we need to look at, and I intend to push that in the next legislative session. But statewide, you know, it's a real balancing test. I don't think they need to go on every street corner, and locals need to have input and not feel like their hands are tied or the voices are muted just because we need to bring some parameters, some guardrails to this, as you and I have talked and discussed, but it doesn't need to be a free-for-all for sure. I agree with that. Here's what I predict is going to happen. We are going to see a lot of moratoriums and a lot of data centers not getting built and stuff like that until after the election. After the next election, we're going to see a bunch of people who were telling you how bad data centers are at ribbon cuttings for data centers because they're going to bring in a lot of revenue and things of that nature. The impacts on the environment and things like that are a little overblown, but it's a very effective tool. And I think you're going to see a lot of that. And then we're going to use the economic development boosted by those data centers in order to mask, I think, some of the things that these people who get elected want to do, maybe not in Alabama, but around the country. And I think they're going to use this increased tax revenue as a way to kind of mask their failings and their strategies and their policies. We can talk about that later. There was another policy that failed. Let me tell you this, Dale, before we move on, I hope you're wrong. I hope that, you know, because we represent, we that are elected, we represent the people, not. big interest from far away, but what do the people really want and what is logical and makes sense for our state? And again, it's going to be a balancing test, but we don't need to throw out the people's wishes and just say, oh, well, it's going to raise more money for the government. That's a bunch of hooey. We don't need to take that approach at all, ever on any issue. So I hope there's a, like I said, some rational conversation about it. We put some guardrails, some parameters in that protects the wishes of the people. I agree. I agree with that part of it. What I'm mostly concerned about is the idea that we've bought into the idea that this technology is like this big evil monster that is going to eat us all. And I think it's been overblown significantly. We'll talk about it more, I'm sure. I want to talk about the lottery. And you're going to say, well, damn, what the hell, man? And I'm going to say, well, yeah, but listen, here's what's happened in Tennessee. Tennessee's lottery.

has found itself at a deficit for what they've promised. They promised we're going to pay for your kid's education. And they came up with the dollar figure that education would cost for every kid to get free education and all this stuff. We've seen these promises across the board. It happens all the time. Great. Wonderful. We've seen it. But. The question is, what happens now when a new form of gambling comes in and goes, well, we can just do this stuff anyway, and you can't do anything with it? And they are seeing in Tennessee sports gambling and prediction markets eating away at their lottery. And because they've done that, now their lottery is at a multi-million or billion dollar deficit that they're going to be looking at. when it comes to helping out kids go to college and stuff like this. And I've talked to politicians, and I've talked to them about this, and they all say the same thing. Oh, no, we're going to cover that nut. And it's kind of funny. I had something pop up on my Twitter feed, and it was a story from 2015, and you're mentioned in the story, and it's about the RSA retirement fund and how the government covers the nut of the promise, even though the input from the stock market investments and the teacher's portion where they pay in, doesn't come close to covering what we're doing, and we're going to be in a massive hole there, similar hole. Do promises of the lottery really just not promised a big dig yet another hole for us? Well, if the lottery passes, and I certainly believe very strongly if it's put on the ballot, it certainly will. But if it passes and the revenue is earmarked, we need to be very, very careful as to the commitments made with that revenue because it's not a... a booming type revenue generator, once you get to, as Tennessee has discovered, once you get to kind of the level that you're going to get to as far as the revenue that it brings in, it's not a, every year it's going to grow 5%, 10%, and you're going to see nice increases. It's going to be more or less stagnant with very slow marginal growth year over year. And as more gaming comes online, then... that there's only so many gaming dollars floating around or betting dollars, you lose some on the lottery. So that's all that to say, Dale, we've got to be very careful on the commitments that we make and where that money's going. And I think Georgia, if I'm not mistaken. several years ago had where they're the same situation where their hope scholarship money didn't come in and they had to backtrack and and going to redo those commitments that they had made to the public and fill the nut like you said or put in some of that from their general fund regular revenue sources to fulfill those commitments. So we don't want to be in that position at all. That's exactly correct. All right. Let's talk politics here for a second.

Well, you know, I think some of it's a disappointment in Washington, and he gets painted with that brush of the productivity of the U.S. Senate or the Republicans in charge in Washington, kind of the dissatisfaction with the national landscape, and he's certainly part of that as a U.S. senator now. You know, and again, I go back to I think there's some anti-incumbent. fervor out there or, you know, let's do a total reset, and that would catch him as well. And then if you're, you know, a challenger, I think people maybe after a couple cycles with Governor Kay Ivey, haven't seen some just real... strong gubernatorial sweeps by the Kay Ivey team, maybe they won a race and just kind of like, well, I'm not, you know, so predisposed to just always vote in Republican. I'm going to say I'm open-minded or I hadn't made up my mind or I may vote Democrat just to throw them off and send them a message. Okay. And additionally, like I would look at this and say, and you kind of hit on it here, but I'm just going to hit on it again. You know, sometimes the super majority doesn't really have anywhere to grow, you know, and there are more seats at risk. So that's an angle to it too that you might want to look at. And I think that's one of the reasons why we're looking at such a split Congress as well. I mean, it's just if we are split country and when it's 50-50, there's not a lot of wiggle room on these things. But when there's like a. you know, a 30 point advantage. There's a lot of wiggle room and a lot of seats to be taken in a wave. There's not really a lot of seats to be taken in a wave. I think a blue ripple is coming. And I think Republicans are going to lose the House. I think you're going to lose the Senate too. But I'm just being very negative right now. So that's just me. All right. State Senator Arthur, thank you very much. Always appreciate him being here on the Alabama A&M $350 million bulldog hotline. He joins us on Friday. We always appreciate him being here and giving us some perspective. We'll talk with him next week. Stay tuned. It's the Dale Jackson Show. You didn't start a business just to keep the lights on. You're here to sell more today than yesterday. You're here to win. Lucky for you, Shopify built the best converting checkout on the planet. Like the just one tapping, ridiculously fast acting, sky high sales stacking, championed at checkouts. That's the good stuff right there. So if your business is in it to win it, win with Shopify. Start your free trial today at Shopify.com slash win. When the moments in your life are too important to miss, You can trust O'Reilly Auto Parts to keep you and your plans on the road. Our professional parts people can test your vehicle's battery and even give it a charge if needed. In most cases, we can install your new battery for free. It's just one of the many services we provide at O'Reilly Auto Parts to ensure life's best moments don't find you stranded.

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