Attribution: Washington’s Little Bastard by Ratt, PoliticalCartoons.com
“Ratt” is a political cartoonist for the news website Crooks And Liars (CrooksAndLiars.com). His drawings have also appeared in The Washington Post, Politico, The Nation, and various other newspapers and periodicals. Formerly, he was a political cartoonist for The Rule of Law This Week, a project launched by the American Constitution Society, and for the Cape Cod Times of Hyannis, Massachusetts, and his work was distributed by Syndicated Writers & Artists and the College Press Service. His awards include Harvard University’s Al Capp Prize for Satire, the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists’ Locher Award, and a New York Press Association Commendation.
It’s America’s 250th birthday and Bill Maher reminds us that there’s still a lot to celebrate about this country.
I find it interesting that the confrontation between stupid and Giorgia Meloni is still showing up in twitter. Very long lasting for anything in a world of constant churn.
Yep BB, it’s officially viral, a “right old bust up”, as this British reporter called it:
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni furiously rebuked President Trump after he claimed to Italian media that she had “begged” him for a photo at the G7 summit.
Strait of Hormuz traffic still just a trickle… “average daily crossings have stayed around 10 ships, far below the more than 100 a day before the war”, according to ship-tracking data cited by The Wall Street Journal.”
#News #Reuters #Newsfeed
Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni accused her one-time close ally Donald Trump of fabricating a story about her, after the US president told an Italian TV channel that she had ‘begged’ him to take a photo with her at the G7 summit
HORMUZ NOT SO OPEN AFTER ALL
Covering the Coverage
The celebrated “reopening” is practically a statistical rounding error, with outbound crude and LNG shipments remaining effectively at zero despite the political theater.
— Human-directed. AI-generated. Powered by Gemini (Pro).
The estimate is that we have lost over a billion barrels of oil and if nothing else happens to shut down the strait, it will be well into 2027 before that deficit is erased and all the reserves are back where they were before Trump started this nonsense.
Today’s starter topic…
Trump claims Reflecting Pool was vandalized and says law enforcement is investigating
— CNN
What, LE is looking to arrest algae? Oh, and SFB’s pool boy?
Pog, you inspired me to waste some Data Center resources….
in re the blue paint floating in the pond: who didn’t check what else other than algae might be sucked up by the vacuums?
also whose fault was it for not reading park service budget request to fix algae problem?
likely culprit for LE to lock up is that guy
https://www.wkyc.com/article/news/local/northeast-ohio/reflecting-pool-lincoln-memorial-john-cafaro-trump-supporter-algae-bloom-greenwater-services-contract-president/95-2db12535-5bde-48e1-a702-48a18e4f2a91
Northeast Ohio company owned by Trump supporter received $1.7M to clean Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool water
Greenwater Services, located in the Trumbull County town of Brookfield, received $1.7 million on April 13 of this year from the U.S. Department of the Interior to “install a fully integrated Nano Bubble Filtration System designed to replace the existing, failing filtration infrastructure at the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool.”
*We live in a simulation. LoL
https://airesistlist.org/
Inspired by Choose Democracy’s Resist List against authoritarianism, we organized the AI resistance movements we documented based on how they pressure different “Pillars of Support” that uphold and perpetuate the empires.
These systems consume an unfathomable amount of data, land, energy, labor, and water. They are rooted in profoundly disturbing ideologies that seek to flatten the world into a “one size fits all” abstraction and to replace humans with machines.
We call the companies leading this form of AI development “empires”. Under the guise of a civilizing mission to “benefit all of humanity”, they use large-scale AI development as cover to consolidate resources, destroy ecosystems, centralize information, hollow out institutions, and gain paramount economic and political power.
*Resist!
https://airesistlist.org/#pillar-data-centers
Fight Extractive Data Centers
*Take a road trip to the giant data center in Sterling, VA. Listen to the constant noise.
***
https://airesistlist.org/#pillar-surveillance
Reject Surveillance
The empires use various forms of surveillance to control workers, undermine collective action, and suppress dissent. Rejecting this expansive monitoring will help preserve an ecosystem of resistance.
***
https://airesistlist.org/#pillar-resource-extraction
Combat Resource Extraction
AI and other technology industries rely on minerals found in the Congo: cobalt, gold, copper, and coltan – leading to inhumane and exploitative mining conditions. Friends of the Congo works with families seeking accountability from Big Tech over the death of children in cobalt mines, and has organized an annual Congo Week since 2008 to build global solidarity and awareness. Their work shines a light on the very human costs within digital technology supply chains.
This is Trump donor and Mar-a-Lago neighbor John Cafaro who got the no-bid contract to install a water purification system for the Reflecting Pool. He has 2 prior convictions, one for bribing a member of Congress and another for an illegal loan that violated campaign finance laws. And oh! He donated $300,000 to a Trump PAC.
Blue
I did a few rounds with Merlin this morning on movements to improve (?) the world and how each generation seems to find one. Abundance, EST, Global Citizen and Planting Trees.
Meme Time
today’s meme…
meme #2…
𝐎𝐏𝐄𝐍 Chat 🎙️11am (ET) until NOON
Grab a Mic, Cam or Keyboard → https://trailmix.cc/stage
More options at https://trailmix.cc/chat
Today’s menu…
Everyone who uses Ai is missing the point I’m trying to make. Oh, well. Based on that photo of Mr. “Greenwater,” we are definitely living in a simulation and they are just screwing with us now. If the guys are really evil, they look like a thumb (see Stephen Mitler), if they just corrupt and greedy they look like a cartoon mobster.
https://www.threads.com/@bradbury_kim/post/DZztSgPCXmt?xmt=AQG0rUrdr87r8xV5NcPDCixZhYehetA5HCdEfZGa0eD2i2R925_4bUsn2LZEGTehLy_yyNNW&slof=1
Trump ties a knot
https://x.com/YourAnonTV/status/2068095989882208564/video/1
NASH IN THE DINER TODAY
Iran Closes Strait of Hormuz & Ken Paxton Scandals
Iran closes the Strait of Hormuz, Trump’s pool guy turns the Lincoln Memorial green, and veteran Trailmixer Nash makes a glorious Diner reunion.
We kick off with breaking news of Iran closing the Strait of Hormuz over Lebanon strikes, a move that guarantees pain at the pump right before the midterms. Naturally, we dive into how the tech bros and accelerationists are practically cheering for a global recession just so they can reshape the board and own everything.
Meanwhile, back in DC, Trump’s Mar-a-Lago pool guy somehow landed a no-bid contract to clean the Lincoln Memorial reflecting pool, and now it looks like a giant vat of radioactive algae. You cannot make this level of grift up. We also deal with some MAGA trolls crashing the live chat and roll out our brand new Crooked Ken Paxton wanted posters.
https://trailmix.cc/chat
https://trailmix.cc
https://trailmix.cc/alerts
00:00 Intro
03:50 The Lincoln Memorial Green Water Scandal
06:40 Dexter Joins and Pride Month History
10:48 Nash Returns to the Diner
13:30 Rural Maine Politics and the Midterms
26:17 Iran Closes the Strait of Hormuz
34:35 Tangling with MAGA Chat Trolls
46:58 Ken Paxton and the Hoffman Files
49:19 Trail Mix Crooked Ken Memes
01:00:47 Tom Paine Outro
PAXTON HIDES THE HOFFMAN FILES
From today’s Digital Diner menu 🍽️
hey BiD, not only do they need data centers to make the slop they need data centers to store the slop
you will never convince dullards to not use a technology that makes them seem clever
and look at all the slop- they literally will need to make the entire world one big giant data center, exponentially more is being made every day, this whole planet will be a data center in two months
Hey Nash… if you are reading here… please come back.
I really miss you!
oh, I accidentally entered the AI function in search and the Chatbot tried to manipulate me when I asked how much water the query used (try it yourself!)
imagine how else they will rig it and for what else
if it wasn’t deliberately rigged, that means the AI was independently manipulative
fun
Anon
You just need to know what question to ask. It will give you honest facts while fudging the issue of how damaging this might be. OTOH, we should probably eliminate golf courses and human beings who water their lawns in a desert instead of planting xeriscape.
^case in point
golf courses and lawn watering don’t superheat the water first
lol we’re doomed
I am not so naïve to think I can convince anybody not to do anything, but you forfeit the right to consider yourself or be considered an environmentalist if you use AI full fucking stop
once again, have a party I don’t care, the tech Lords are using it for surveillance and murder, if only people used it for funny pictures and shit writing
I think cloud computing. social media storage and streaming services use up more data center capacity than AI? Why aren’t they getting some of the blame?
oh, they’re using it to fire so many people also, every time I talk to a corporate employee they have the 1000 yard stare from having to fire a bunch of people the day before
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jun/20/trump-reflecting-pool-renovation-vandalism
Donald Trump has blamed “vandalism” for “real problems” at Washington’s reflecting pool after an algae bloom in the wake of a $14.2m renovation of the site he declared would turn it “American flag” blue. Paint has also been seen peeling off in the water.
Days after his administration claimed the pool was actually “crystal clear”, despite an unmistakably green hue, the US president acknowledged issues – and, without evidence, blamed foul play.
*The foul play came from inside the White House.
“We’ve cleaned, renovated, and beautified over 45 Monuments and Memorials, 28 Statues, and 22 Fountains in Washington, DC,” Trump wrote in a lengthy post on his Truth Social platform on Friday night. “However, we’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool, which sits between The Washington Monument and The Lincoln Memorial.”
cloud computing is a form of AI, and I don’t use social media, but the days of free storage are over
apparently, those uses weren’t so demanding that they weren’t willing to give you storage space for free
I wasn’t reflexively anti-consumer AI until I looked into how resource intensive it really is, but I’m not gonna campaign for the same species that invented garbage landfills to not use ai
Anon
As I said, fudging how dangerous it is. Particularly if dumping in the ocean that is already overheating, killing coral that are the feeding grounds of majority of sea life which are already over fished for humanity which means the dolphins and whales are starving. The Antarctic is melting which means the Emperor penguins and Arctic seals have now made the endangered list.
If you want a good read from 60 years ago: Penguins Have Square Eyes by Patrick Trese about the conditions he documented for the IGY.
https://mashable.com/tech/meta-facebook-morale-employee-perks
Meta to address low employee morale with snacks – The CTO admitted that morale is almost the worst it’s been in 20 years
The company conducted a mass layoff of 8,000 workers last month — amounting to 10 percent of its workforce — while at least 6,500 others were involuntarily reassigned to work on its AI models in its new Applied AI division. Employees have reportedly found the work drudging, menial, and “soul-crushing,” with the overwhelming majority deeply unhappy with the change. The tech giant is further facing backlash after announcing it would track U.S. employees’ keystrokes and mouse movements to train AI.
it’s a closed system (the earth), Jamie, it doesn’t matter where the heated water is dumped
yes, it will have localized effects and I have a suspicion communities are going to regret sterilizing the natural world around them because the techlords convinced them it would be an economic boon
If you are forced to train Ai, take your shoes off and type with your toes. This is your chance to be sawdust in the cogs of end stage capitalism.
https://www.businessinsider.com/x-meta-employee-snack-offerings-talent-wars-2026-6
X tells ‘neglected’ Meta employees that it is hiring and will ‘exceed any snack budget offer’
To entice engineers to work for X, Nikitia Bier, the top product executive at the social media platform, offered to up its snack game.
“Neglected Meta employees: X is hiring web and data engineers & scientists,” he wrote on the platform on Thursday. “We will match or even exceed any snack budget offer.”
He instructed employees to use the word “snacks” in their application for software engineering roles, which pay between $180,000 to $440,000, according to the job listing — plenty of money to buy snacks in case Bier can’t get your favorite Dubai chocolate-covered pretzels in the office kitchen.
While Meta’s workplace morale has taken a pummelling in recent months, X’s is on a high.
The company is part of xAI, Musk’s artificial intelligence company, which is part of SpaceX, which had the biggest initial public offering ever last week. The IPO minted over 4,000 new millionaires at the company.
*Does it matter which soul-sucking devil you work for?
you train AI every time you post on this site or any site
That’s why you’re not getting my adorable gardening pictures
The moral superiority is delicious. Yum Yum Yum.
if you want to not be part of the problem, ya gotta get off that phone and get into that garden. and dig dig dig and weed weed weed
But don’t use any plastic and don’t use any fossil fuels
They still sell reel mowers
actually, don’t dig, it disturbs the soil matrix as we all know
Storage, video streaming, websites, databases, and email are also using data centers.They should at least be part of the conversation.
The ecosystems destroyed to build these data centers will never be restored in anyone’s lifetime that’s alive now. what gives these venal county commissioner-types approving them across the country the right?
Climate change & Warming for the US
Left is roughly 1900 – Right is now.
Fairpoint Craig and I never precluded those issues from the conversation, but the tech lords didn’t need infinite data centers before AI now they do
and my phone is full because I don’t use cloud storage
So principled, wow and only HALF a narcissist tyvm ☺️
Just in case it all goes boom
The Book The Ultimate Guide to Rebuilding a Civilization
So what could’ve we done? we could have elected Kamala who frankly is no genius, but at least she would have likely not rubber stamped every tech lord initiative although we don’t know for sure
Ideally, we would’ve had competent and responsible people in government before the AI boom to regulate it but we’ve made serving in politics so personally costly (thanks to social media controlled by drumroll please the tech Lords) that only terrible fucking people wanna do it
So watch it all burn
I am monitoring Kamala’s appearances. At a G7 panel on climate change this week she called for requiring data centers to use renewable energy.
well, that’s a start and communities should demand they are built in an environmentally responsible manner (no clear-cutting or pointless grading and excavation), which is much more expensive but these tech companies have more money than a human mind can comprehend
they could probably make these data center spaces very responsibly, but that costs more than the absolute minimum
They have gated communities, they don’t need to live by these data centers
we will cram human beings into towers, but not server hardware?
That’s some anti-human bullshit
build them on superfund sites that are good for nothing else and already toxic
And if that’s not enough land for you then…
Honestly, I don’t think we want to follow the previous blueprint to rebuild humanity.
lol
https://www.datacenters.com/news/bitcoin-miners-pivot-to-ai-data-centers-a-strategic-shift-in-2025
In the early 2020s, Bitcoin miners were celebrated—and often criticized—for their sheer energy consumption. Massive facilities in rural America, Iceland, and Kazakhstan ran day and night, performing trillions of hash calculations per second to secure the Bitcoin network. But as the economics of crypto mining evolved, and AI infrastructure demand exploded, many of these miners found themselves facing a strategic crossroads.
By mid-2025, a surprising transformation is well underway: dozens of former Bitcoin mining firms have begun to repurpose their infrastructure into AI data centers, turning their GPU-rich, power-intensive setups into rentable compute farms for training, inference, and high-performance computing
Mining companies are realizing that their expertise in power procurement, thermal management, and bare-metal server operation uniquely positions them to succeed in the growing AI infrastructure economy.
Massive electrical capacity: Mining farms are often located in regions with direct substation access and can handle 10MW+ loads.
Efficient cooling systems: Miners already operate hot machines in dense clusters, sometimes in challenging climates.
Low-latency fiber: Most have optimized network setups for rapid transaction verification and uptime reliability.
Automation and monitoring expertise: These firms built some of the first fully automated, remote-managed compute centers.
1. Declining Bitcoin Block Rewards
With the 2024 halving, the BTC reward for mining a block dropped from 6.25 to 3.125 coins. As profitability tightens, many miners are reconsidering long-term viability.
2. Energy Regulations and Local Pressure
States like New York and provinces like British Columbia have passed moratoriums or restrictions on crypto mining. AI, on the other hand, is seen as a public-benefit workload with enterprise and academic use cases.
3. Surging Demand for AI Compute
Training a large language model today can cost millions of dollars in GPU time. Inference, too, requires constant, reliable access to high-performance clusters. Traditional cloud providers can’t meet the demand fast enough.
4. Investor Pressure
Publicly traded miners like Riot, Marathon Digital, and Hut 8 are under pressure to diversify revenue streams, especially as institutional interest in crypto has plateaued.
Unless you revert to a 100% off-line life, you can’t get away from everything. However, Ai should be avoided; it’s theft of the labor and talent of others, at the most basic level.
easiest way to get someone to do something
*Coming soon to a country near you!
These times are a bit like the start of the industrial age when cheerleaders for “progress” looked away as factories, railroads and coal mines destroyed land, people and air. Difference now is more public awareness of the dark side. We just need to make public officals catch up.
@NikkiLimo
“Hear me out: we make new “Amish” towns, but instead of 18th century customs it’s just the 90’s forever. There’s Blockbuster and Pizza Hut, and no social media (but you can use AOL instant messenger).
Lmk when you guys wanna start.”
*Immediately. Leave home without your phone. Libraries still have physical magazines. Go read for an afternoon.
Germany plays Ivory Coast this afternoon. Good luck to Winterlinde, if you observe WC.
Re: Father’s Day, 6/21. My father was in the Navy during WWII. Twice he was on ships that were sunk by German torpedoes. He was off the coast of Normandy on D-day, on one of the ships on the invasion fleet. Much later in life, he was a vice president of the Steelworkers Union. Cancer took him in 1992. RIP Dad.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2026/06/19/trump-unveils-air-force-one-qatar-gift/90622588007/
“The workmanship of this plane is — when you see it, you won’t believe it,” Trump said in remarks to an audience of service members. “Actually, the quality of the woods, the quality of the materials, the quality of the engines ‒ these engines are the finest in the world. Nothing like it.”
*Why do I think the engines will crap out during the first flight? Oh, yeah. Based on everything he boasts about turning to muck.
The Qatari plane’s transfer to the United States marked an unprecedented $400 million donation from a foreign country, with the aircraft later requiring extensive additional work to be turned into Air Force One. The gift raised bipartisan ethics and security concerns. Democrats accused Trump of violating the Constitution by accepting a personal gift from a foreign country without congressional approval.
The plane isn’t expected to operate as Air Force One beyond 2028.
It will serve as a transition Air Force One while Boeing builds two new presidential 747s, which are expected to be completed in 2028, Trump’s final year in office. The bridge plane, which the Air Force has designated as a VC-25B Bridge, will then go to Trump’s future presidential library.
“There’s never been a plane like this ever built, and there will never be a plane like this built again,” Trump said. “This has things that no other plane can ever have, including the ones that are being built.”
Thanks for sharing Nash. That’s the real deal for war stories.
My Dad was a 19-year old at the end of the war. I was alway disappointed he didn’t have any dramatic stories other than wandering around the South Pacific getting a tan. Best he could do was a story about falling asleep during night watch on his ship. Superior officer had to come wake him up and point to the water. Some Japanese sailors were trying to surrender, but they couldn’t get his attention.
IDENTITY CRISIS AT THE DINER
From today’s Digital Diner menu 🍽️
Craig; I loved your father’s story. My father would have loved it also.
Nash, he didn’t get shore leave for a while after that fiasco, and they stuck him with potato peeling duty for the rest of his tour. An important skill tho. I never saw anyone who could flawlessly peel a potato so fast.
I got stuck working in the galley (dining area) aboard ship once. I was in charge of the doughnut making machine. Crew of 5,000 on an aircraft carrier. I made and served doughnuts 12 hours a day. Thousands of them.
https://www.trackaipac.com/
Rep. Randy Fine claims that Track AIPAC is a “foreign Muslim terror cell.” Nope, it’s sunlight on who he and other members of Congress actually represent.
Blue,
The Book provides instructions on little skills such as how to build a pulley or erect a latrine for the totally ignorant left behind who might need to know how. 😁. Plus it has pretty pictures.
Algae arrests, Paxton’s hidden files, and presidential amnesia. Just another day in the glorious dumpster fire of American politics. Watch the latest from The Digital Diner:
it’s cool book, they could’ve done a better job with the title
I understand hitchhikers guide to the universe was already taken
Nash 3.0 Maybe a TrailMix Cafe post once in awhile, please?
My great-uncle had wonderful stories, but most of them I just taped (on one of those mini cassettes about 2”) and paid more attention to the r tape recorder. He was a gunner’s mate on a US Merchant Marine ship in WWII.
He did tell me to be careful when I was toasting coconut for a cake, because “they’ll blow up on ya.” Huh? They brought coconuts on board and threw green ones in an oven. Boom. Made a “helluva racket” and he “high-tailed it out of there.”
BiD, your Talarico shirt a big hit right now at Pride festival in my neighborhood. Could have sold 40. Ran into this guy who says Talarico inspired him to run for Congress in TX 3.
Anon,
I’m prepared. If it all goes belly up, I won’t panic. I have a towel.
demat gun won’t hurt either
not as if you could get a hold of the key of Rassilon obv
Svengoolie alert: Abbott & Costello + the American Revolutionary War.
Craig – I haven’t had the nerve to wear my Talafreako tee in front of the locals.
Maybe Mr. Hunt would do an 11-Noon interview with you, without the rest of us changing the subject every three minutes.
Sheesh Anon, you expect me to hunt down the good Doctor in the restaurant at the end of the universe? I’ll be on the lookout for the blue box.
you can subscribe to my fan theory that Ford prefect is the doctor
Or if he has red hair, Lazarus Long
The Doctor aint no mfer
(heinlein joke)
let your freak flag fly
fuck the locals
(i actually have an issue with that slogan ngl, don’t think it’s helpful)
when they call him a “freak” they are really calling him something else
Ford, The Doctor? Nah.
Unless the lurkers are into science fiction, today’s conversation must make them think we are all off our rockers.
Ha! Paxton calls him “Low T Talarico,” and his response is that he had to look up what that meant because guys his age don’t have to worry about that. Basically, an ‘OK Boomer’ boomerang!
https://www.yahoo.com/news/videos/real-men-serve-others-talarico-131333386.html
It figures a Trump caused green sludge crisis would have a nickname.
Scenedesmus, a genus of green algae nicknamed “Skinny Dead Mouse” by scientists, is now flourishing, according to testing that was run at the request of The Atlantic.
https://www.cnn.com/2026/06/20/politics/reflecting-pool-lincoln-memorial-algae-renovation
“We’ve had some real problems with Vandalism at the beautiful Reflecting Pool,” Trump wrote on Truth Social, without citing evidence. “The algae is 75% gone, and the condition will soon be completely remedied, and the area that was vandalized, fortunately, is just a small area of damage, and will be fixed early next week.”
*Weird, because yesterday he said it was “crystal clear.”
tRUMP gave the Reflecting Pool an STD.
Adams was a Dr. Who writer before that novel, Ford is the Doctor (character without the ip rights)
Heart of Gold is the TARDIS
the Moffat seasons of NuWho with Capaldi have a strong Hitchhiker’s vibe
there i maxxed out the nerd for you Jamie
lol that’s the fucking nerdiest thing i’ve ever written
It’s been fun. I’m a major fan of the five book trilogy.
Flipping tables at DC’s 17th Street Pride. Ran into a Texas candidate actually willing to fight the Christian nationalist dumpster fire in our public schools.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford_Prefect_(character)
“Adams conceived Ford as a polar opposite to The Doctor from the British science fiction television series, Doctor Who, for which he served as script editor in the late 1970s. “My original concept behind Ford Prefect was that given the choice between saving the planet and going to a good party, Ford would choose the party”, Adams said in an interview with Macworld.[5] Ford takes an existential view on the universe, sometimes bordering on joyful nihilism.”
Anon – You’d better get busy editing that Wikipedia page.
New fact (for me): Ford Prefect was an automobile. Why would a car company name a vehicle to rhyme with the word defect?
They used to air the 4th Doctor Who when I was in high school, probably. Hated it.
But then Peter Davison became The Doctor, and I loved it, because I had loved him in “All Creatures Great and Small.” David Tennant was born to play the part, and is my favorite.
Hey, what a joyful (Ai free) afternoon y’all had! Happy Pride!
intergalactic hobo = doctor
President Donald Trump will travel to Camp David on Friday for a Cabinet meeting, reviving plans that were postponed last month because of poor weather.
*Why were they going to Camp David last month? Was it weather or his health that stopped that trip?
Then there is the AIPAC gang and their Israeli talking points:
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), another Trump ally, also voiced concerns, telling reporters on Capitol Hill Thursday that the president was receiving “some really bad advice on this deal.”
Meanwhile, Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, praised Trump for weakening Iran’s position but warned that “certain aspects of this deal are a step in the wrong direction.”
*Tom Cotton is the Senator pushing section 622 to merge Mossad and the CIA, basically.
NEW THREAD by our trail friend Jack