One Bubble To Rule Them All

Next stop, computronium. Meet the Lutnicks; the Whitehouse Effect; Brent Bozell; What we have here is a failure to whip

Author

Brad Johnson
November 20, 2025

PRESENTED BY WEAK WHIPS

Record heat and flooding rains are coming to Austin, as are Elon Musk’s DOGE bros. It’s a fracking-powered universal-paperclips party! The fracking-powered universal-paperclips AI slop bubble is the “one bubble to rule them all,” David Dayen writes.

“We have a 2000s housing bubble level of financial engineering on top of a 1920s level of private unregulated lending on top of something bigger than a 1990s internet (or 1870s railroad) level of technology and infrastructure build-out. It’s one bubble to rule them all.”

The AI financial bubble—meet the Lutnicks!—is swelling within the planetary-limits bubble. Speaking of which, power outages are getting longer, and we have murdered Western Australia's Ningaloo Reef. Carl David Goette-Luciak explains the newly published work of Cornell researchers led by systems engineer Fengqi You:

“Depending on how fast the AI industry expands, the authors predict U.S. data centers could annually consume as much water as 10 million Americans and emit as much carbon dioxide as 10 million cars. Those estimates put the annual resource consumption of the AI industry in the range of the entire state of New York.”

Fun fact: This catastrophic slop bubble is also exacerbating the global sand crisis, as silica sand is needed both for fracking and chips. Next stop: computronium!

AI is a disease that we all have to live with until we find a cure (EMP).

— Theciscokidder (@theciscokidder.bsky.social)2025-11-20T11:23:25.931Z

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) is decrying Donald Trump’s abandonment of climate action today at a Hill press conference at 1:30 pm with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Cal.) and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.):

Zach Colman of the fracking-paperclips-funded Politico Power Switch reports from Belém that Whitehouse is “constantly plotting” with Sens. Martin Heinrich of New Mexico and Brian Schatz of Hawaii on Democratic climate policy and messaging. Which is troubling, as Schatz has been pushing all-of-the-above energy permitting deregulation and Heinrich is an aggressive huckster of the tech industry’s “Abundance” grift. In a Power Switch advertisement, fracking pipeline giant Enbridge sells the slop:

“Artificial intelligence is reshaping energy demand—and meeting that demand will require every tool available. The U.S. will need new data centers, vast sources of energy and infrastructure to deliver power where it’s needed. Energy providers, including Enbridge, are using all available energy sources and building diversified infrastructure portfolios to help meet this growing need. As AI’s growth accelerates, energy providers, policymakers and tech firms must coordinate to avoid falling behind.”

Who doesn’t love a diversified infrastructure portfolio? Well, the people of Sand Springs, Ark., DeForest, Wis., Pine Island, Minn., Wyndam, Va., Springdale, Pa., Bessemer, Ala., Ashville, Ohio, Hermantown, Minn., Pike Township, Ind., Hazle Township, Pa., Ellenwood, Ga…. Molly Taft explores the rising resistance to the data center explosion for Wired, and Dan Gearino reports on the opposition for Inside Climate News.

A cardinal('s) moment.

On Wednesday, dozens of Democrats joined the House GOP to vote for two bills to overturn DC law enforcement policies—H.R. 5214 and H.R. 5107—which “undermine the ability of the 700,000 residents of Washington, D.C. to govern themselves – a bedrock principle of our democracy” after whip Kathleen Clark (D-Mass.) failed to whip against the bills.

Today at 9:30 am, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee votes on three ambassadorial nominations, including the notorious climate denier and far-right-wing propagandist Brent Bozell, founder of the Media Research Center, to be Ambassador to South Africa. His son was a January 6 rioter. Also nominated are career diplomat Brent Christensen to be Ambassador to Bangladesh, and private health-care executive and Republican high-dollar donor Benjamin León Jr. to be Ambassador to Spain.

At 10 am, the House Energy and Commerce Committee’s commerce subcommittee holds a hearing on tourism, travel, and Daylight Saving Time, which loyal Hill Heat readers know is a pet issue of the editor. Marketing professor Tyler Kleppe is the anti-science “expert” witness; there are no witnesses who are medical experts on the deadly costs of DST.

The Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee has a Thursday morning vote on four Trump nominees. The nominees are Charlton Allen to be General Counsel for the Federal Labor Relations Authority, John Walk to be USDA Inspector General, and Thomas Bell to be HHS Inspector General. Allen is the former chairman and chief executive officer of the North Carolina Industrial Commission and a right-wing activist. Walk, now serving as a USDA lawyer, worked with Stephen Miller as a DHS and White House lawyer on immigration policy during Trump’s first term. He is the son-in-law of Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first Attorney General.

Lawless "law enforcement" in DC - DEA agents are traveling in a van with a taped-up license plate. Even the cars are masked cowards #bigballsgoonshow

— Brad Johnson (@climatebrad.hillheat.com)2025-11-20T01:59:15.616Z

Russell Samora walked across Massachusetts. He doesn’t believe he had any epiphanies, but you should judge for yourself.

Hearings on the Hill:

Climate Action:

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