Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Politics. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 19, 2024

The 2024 Wyoming Legislative Session. Part 6. After the Party

 


The legislators are home, but the Governor is still acting on bills.

And the session can now start to be assessed.

March 12, 2024

The Governor vetoed the charter school grant authorization bill.

None of the election bills survived the session.

Joan Barron, in a Trib op ed run today, has noted how the Senate is now being influenced by the far right and becoming less congenial.

The Wyoming Educational Association, in the same issue, ran a full page age against Casper's Jeanette Ward, a member of the Freedom Caucus, which read:

Ward is from Illinois and relocated from there to Wyoming under the far right's persistent mythical belief that Wyoming's conservatism is the same as the Rust Belt's, although their influence in the state is making the latter true.

The same group voted against increasing funding for police retirement, and did it the day of a Sheridan policeman's funeral.

And it wanted to send unallocated ARPA funding back to the Federal government.

FOR RELEASE Immediately 

DATE March 11, 2024

CONTACT Ryan Frost, Legislative Information Officer

TO REACH 307.777.7881

2024 Budget Session Concludes

CHEYENNE - With the sound of the gavel, the Wyoming Legislature wrapped up the 2024 Budget Session on Friday at the State Capitol in Cheyenne. 

At the start of session, a total of 366 bills and resolutions were numbered for introduction. The Wyoming Legislature passed a total of 126 bills. Of the 107 pieces of legislation that were introduced in the Senate, 71 of those bills passed both the House and Senate. The House introduced 84 bills and 55 of those garnered the approval of both bodies. Sixty-one percent of committee bills passed both chambers, while 20 percent of the individually sponsored bills passed both bodies. Legislation that passed both houses has either been acted on or is waiting to be acted on by Gov. Mark Gordon. 

The Legislature also adopted the State's biennial budget on Friday, and the bill has been sent to the Governor for his consideration. He will have 15 days to consider line-item vetoes and sign the bill. The appropriations and transfers in the bill for the 2025-2026 fiscal biennium total $11 billion. Of this, $3.4 billion is from the General Fund, net of de-appropriations and including $170 million of discretionary transfers to savings. 

Both the House and Senate have addressed a broad range of issues affecting Wyoming residents and while some of these laws will take effect immediately, many will not go into effect until July 1 of this year. Lawmakers will begin their interim committee work in the coming weeks. The Legislature’s Management Council plans to meet and assign interim committee topics April 1. Wyoming’s Sixty-Eighth Legislature will convene next year on Jan. 14 for the 2025 General Session.

The Wyoming Legislature encourages the public to participate in interim activities. The public can use the Legislature's website at www.wyoleg.gov to find information about interim legislative committees, including live video streams of committee meetings, committee rosters, dates and locations of interim meetings, and minutes from those meetings. The website also provides a free email subscription service for all interim committee information. -END-  

March 13, 2024

Ward was the subject of a second major ad in the Trib.


Ward also drew a lengthy letter to the Editor in the Trib.  Usually I don't post those, but I will here as this is interesting.

Ward wasting time with culture wars

Representative Jeanette Ward,

House District 57, has been doing a poor job of representing her constituents and listening to their needs. She has voted against numerous bills that would have helped Wyoming citizens and instead wasted valuable time during the legislative session touting culture war issues. House Bill 50, the “What is a Woman” act, is a prime example of this. During a budget session the legislature has 20 days to pass a budget. That is literally the only job that legislators have during the budget session. It takes a 2/3 majority to get a non-budget bill to the floor for debate. Knowing this, Representative Ward introduced a bill that wasted time and resources and was completely unnecessary. That bill rightly died because it failed introduction.

This session, she also voted against bills that committees had spent many hours considering during the interim period, which was disrespectful to their work and slowed down the legislative process. She voted against funding the 988 suicide hotline even though Wyoming has one of the highest suicide rates in the nation, literally voting against saving lives. Last session she voted against most of the bills that would have helped families and disadvantaged Wyoming citizens, including Medicare for Moms, which helps low-income women provide for their babies. Fortunately, other legislators understood the issue and the bill passed. Representative Ward is not interested in helping Wyoming’s most vulnerable citizens, she would rather propose bills that are solutions looking for problems.

This is not acceptable. House District 57 deserves a legislator who listens to constituents, focuses her time on the budget during a budget session, and understands what genuine issues matter to Wyoming. She is not it. We need someone who has solutions to Wyoming problems, not someone who fans the flames of culture wars. Voters need to remember this on election day.

Judy Trohkimoinen,

Casper

This would suggest that perhaps there's a rising effort against Ward, who was endorsed by her predecessor, now Secretary of State Gray, because of her far right views, even though she had next to no connection with the state when she arrived, or people are getting tired of her.  

In some ways, this reflects a rising feature of Wyoming's politics in which the old Party is beginning to react more strongly to the Trump Party.

March 15, 2024

Governor Gordon Signs Bills That Help Reduce Housing Costs, Protect Critical Infrastructure

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon signed two bills today, one that helps protect key infrastructure in Wyoming from foreign adversaries, and the other that lowers the cost of constructing housing

SF0077 - Homeland defense-infrastructure reporting and investigating requires the state to annually identify “critical infrastructure zones”.  Any property transactions within those zones will be shared among the county clerks, the Wyoming Office of Homeland Security and the Wyoming Division of Criminal Investigation. Those agencies will then determine if the transaction  involves a foreign adversary or a state sponsor of terrorism that could pose a threat to national or state security or to critical infrastructure.

“Our nation has never faced graver threats from adversaries both foreign and domestic,” Governor Gordon said. “Protection of Wyoming infrastructure and identifying potential threats to our state or national security must be among our highest priorities. I want to thank sponsor Senator Tara Nethercott, whose experience and insight were invaluable in the drafting and passage of this bill. It is imperative that we protect our precious property rights, while we also ensure we are aware of any potential threats within our state’s borders.”

Senate File 114 - Contractor licenses-reciprocal recognition requirements require local governments in Wyoming to recognize contractor licenses issued by a Wyoming county, city or town. This ensures that qualified contractors don’t have to go through additional, time-consuming and expensive licensing requirements when working in Wyoming communities. The bill emerged from the interim work of the Regulatory Reduction Task Force, which explored a range of ideas that could help expand housing opportunities for Wyoming’s essential workforce. The Task Force identified a patchwork of state and local licensing requirements that contributed to additional construction costs, which were then passed along to Wyoming home buyers. 

“My administration has been passionate in reducing red tape, and while there is certainly more work to be done in addressing Wyoming’s housing shortage, this new law is a small step towards streamlining unnecessarily redundant and costly requirements,” Governor Gordon said.

Both bills are effective July 1, 2024. 

March 15, cont:

Governor Gordon Vetoes Bills to Prevent Legislature From Overstepping its Authority and Creating Confusion for the Public

 

CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon took action on 18 bills today, vetoing one bill that encroaches on the separation of powers between the executive and legislative branches, and one that could create confusion for consumers, meat processors and producers.

SF0013 - Federal land use plans - legal actions authorized would have duplicated funding for legal actions by the State and have been unconstitutional. The bill authorized the Legislature to take legal action against the federal government, and provided a whopping $75 million in borrowing authority for it to do so. In his veto letter, the Governor lambasted the bill as a “clear attempt to cross, blur and trample the line of separation between our equal, but separate, branches of government.” 

Governor Gordon criticized the bill as not being fiscally conservative, pointing out that $75 million represents 67 percent of the Attorney General’s office biennial budget. He said that the bill would only “enable duplicative Legislative litigation safaris that would be counterproductive and contrary to Wyoming’s well established practice of cooperation between branches.”

The Governor also expressed concern about the confusion that would be created in the courts over who represents Wyoming. It is the Executive branch that “is uniquely designed to provide one voice when it is necessary,” he wrote.

At best, competing litigation efforts would only serve to confuse courts as to who represents the State of Wyoming, and at worst it would enable frivolous and political pursuits,” the Governor wrote. 

The Governor also vetoed SF0103 - Wyoming PRIME Act, which as a “trigger” bill, would only become effective if the federal PRIME Act is passed by Congress. The Governor noted that while he is supportive of food freedom legislation, the Wyoming PRIME Act could create confusion among consumers, meat processors and livestock producers. Early media reports demonstrate the potential confusion created by the bill. Currently, an attempt to use the provisions of SF0103 by Wyoming producers before the federal PRIME Act is passed by Congress would put them at risk of fines and license revocation, and imperil Wyoming’s primacy for its meat and poultry inspection program. Finally, if the federal PRIME Act is passed by Congress, but is amended during that process, Wyoming statute would likely need to be changed to conform, which could unnecessarily delay state implementation.

The Governor’s veto letters are attached and may be found on the Bills page of the Governor’s website. 

Governor Gordon signed the following bills today: 

SEA0034 SF0014 State fair board-powers and responsibilities.

SEA0035 SF0113 Light and high profile vehicle closures-2.

SEA0039 SF0096 Trusts and bank assets in bankruptcy-clarification.

SEA0040 SF0080 Solid waste management-definition amendments.

SEA0043 SF0053 Sixth judicial district-number of judges

SEA0046 SF0026 Special district vacancies

SEA0047 SF0035 Public records-DOC investigations.

SEA0053 SF0023 Public utilities-energy resource procurement.

SEA0059 SF0100 Prompt payment of insurance claims.

SEA0063 SF0083 Revisor's bill.

SEA0064 SF0090 State-managed local government equity investment pool.

SEA0069 SF0042 Low-carbon reliable energy standards-amendments.

HEA0043 HB0126 Child care is a residential use of property.

HEA0046 HB0058 Forensic genetic genealogy pilot program.

HEA0047 HB0029 Cold case database and investigations.

HEA0051 HB0138 State funds-pool A participation and fund limits.

-END-

March 16, 2024

After a break of one day, the WEA resumbed its advertisements on Jeanette Ward.


March 19, 2024

After a hiatus of several days, the WEA resumed its ad campaign against Jeaette Ward.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 6. Politics

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with th...

A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 6. Politics

James Monroe.  

And, yes, we're still not on to the Agrarian finale in this series.  That's because we have one more important topic to consider first.

Politics.

If you read distributists' social media, and you probably don't, you'll see that some people have the namby pamby idea that if we all just act locally everything will fall in line.  While people should act locally, that's a bunch of crap.

What these people don't realize is that politically, we're a corporate capitalist society, and we are where we are right now, in large part due to that.  Corporations are a creature of the state, not of nature, and exists as a legal fiction because the state says they do.  This is deemed, in our imaginations, to be necessarily because, . . . well it is.

Or rather, it's deemed to be necessary as we believe we need every more consolidation and economies of scale.  

We really don't, and in the end, it serves just itself.  We do need some large entities, particularly in manufacturing, which would actually bring us back to the original allowance for corporate structure, which was quite limited.  Early in US history, most corporations were banned from being created.

Legally, they would not need to be banned now, but simply not allowed to form except for actual needs.  And when very large, the Theodore Roosevelt proposal that they be treated like public utilities, or alternatively some percentage of their stock or membership would vest in their employees, would result in remedying much of the ills that they've created.

Likewise, eliminating the absurd idea that they can use their money for influence in politics could and should be addressed.

Which would require changes in the law.

And that takes us back to politics.

Nearly every living American, and Canadian for that matter, would agree that a major portion of the problems their nations face today are ones manufactured by politics.  The current economic order, as noted, is politically vested.

The United States has slid into a political decline of epic proportions, and its noteworthy that this came about after Ronald Reagan attacked and destroyed the post 1932 economic order which provided for an amplified type of American System in which there was, in fact, a great deal of involvement in the economy and the affairs of corporations, as well as a hefty income tax on the wealth following the country's entry into World War Two.  It's never been the case, of course, that there was a trouble free political era although interestingly, there was a political era which is recalled as The Era of Good Feelings due to its lack of political strife.  

That era lasted a mere decade, from 1815 to 1825, but it's instructive.

The Era of Good Feelings came about after the War of 1812, which was a war that not only caused internal strife, but which risked the dissolution of the nation.  Following the war the Federalist Party collapsed thereby ending the bitter disputes that had characterized its fights with the more dominant Democratic-Republican Party.. . . . huh. . . 

Anyhow, President James Monroe downplayed partisan affiliation in his nominations, with the ultimate goal of affecting national unity and eliminating political parties altogether.

Borrowing a line from the Those Were the Days theme song of All In the Family, "Mister we could use a man like James Monroe again".

Political parties have had a long and honorable history in politics. They've also had a long and destructive one.  Much of their role depends upon the era.  In our era, for a variety of reasons, they are now at the hyper destructive level.

They are, we would note, uniquely subject to the influence of money, and the fringe, which itself is savvy to the influence of money.  And money, now matter where it originates from, tends to concentrate uphill if allowed to, and it ultimately tends to disregard the local.

"All politics is local" is the phrase that's famously attached to U.S. politics, but as early as 1968, according to Andrew Gelman, that's declined, and I agree with his observation.  Nowhere is that more evident than Wyoming.

In Wyoming both the Republican and the Democratic Party used to be focused on matters that were very local, which is why both parties embraced in varying degrees, The Land Ethic, and both parties, in varying degrees, embraced agriculture.  It explains why in the politics of the 70s and 80s the major economic driver of the state, the oil and gas industry, actually had much less influence than it does now.

Things were definitely changing by the 1980s, with money, the love of which is the root of all evil, being a primary driver.  Beyond that, however, technology played a role.  The consolidation of industry meant that employers once headquartered in Casper, for instance, moved first to Denver, then to Houston, or were even located in Norway. As the love of money is the root of all evil, and the fear of being poor a major personal motivator, concern for much that was local was increasingly lost.

The increasing broad scope of the economy, moreover, meant that there were economic relocations of people who had very little connection with the land and their state.  Today's local Freedom Caucus in the legislature, heavily represented by those whose formative years were out of state, is a primary example in the state.  Malevolent politics out of the south and the Rust Belt entered the state and are battled out in our legislature even though they have little to do with local culture, lands or ethics.

Moreover, since 1968 the Democratic Party has gone increasingly leftward, driven at first by the impacts of the 1960s and then by its left leaning elements.  It in turn became anti-democratic, relying on the Supreme Court to force upon the nation unwanted social change, until it suddenly couldn't rely on the Court anymore, at which time it rediscovered democracy.  At the same time Southern and Rust Belt Populists, brought into the Republican Party by Ronald Reagan, eventually took it over and are now fanatically devoted to anti-democratic mogul, Donald Trump, whose real values, other than the love of money and a certain sort of female appearance, is unknown, none of which maters to his fanatic base as they apply the Führerprinzip to his imagined wishes and he responds.

We know, accordingly, have a Congress that's completely incapable of doing anything other than banning TikTok.

Distributism by design, and Agrarianism by social reference, both apply Catholic Social Teaching, one intentionally and one essentially as it was already doing that before Catholic Social Teaching was defined.  As we've discussed elsewhere, Catholic Social Teaching applies the doctrines of Human Dignity, Solidarity and Subsidiarity.  Solidarity, as Pope John Paul II describe it In Sollicitudo rei socialis, is not “a feeling of vague compassion or shallow distress at the misfortunes of others. It is a firm and persevering determination to commit oneself to the common good”.  Subsidiarity provides that that matters ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest or least centralized competent authority.

We are a long ways from all of that, right now.

Politically, we're in a national political era that is violently opposed to solidarity and subsidiarity.  Supposed national issues and imagined remote conspiracies, dreamt up by political parties, swamp real local issues.  Global issues, in contract, which require a competent national authority, or even international authority, to deal with, cannot get attention as the masses are distracted by buffoons acting like Howler Monkeys.

Destroying the parties would serve all of this.  And that's a lot easier to do than might be supposed.

And more difficult.

Money makes it quite difficult, in fact.  But it can be done.

The easiest way to attack this problem is to remove political parties as quasi official state agencies, which right now the GOP and Democratic Party are.  Both parties have secured, in many states, state funded elections which masquerade as "primary elections" but which are actually party elections.  There's utterly no reason whatsoever that the State of Wyoming, for example, should fund an internal Republican election, or a Democratic one.

Primary elections are quite useful, but not in the fashion that most state's have them.  A useful example is Alaska's, whose system was recently proposed for Wyoming, but which was not accepted (no surprise).  Interestingly, given as the state's two actual political parties right now are the Trumpites and the Republican remnants, this a particularly good, and perhaps uniquely opportune, time to go to this system.  And that system disregard party affiliations.

Basically, in that type of election, the top two vote getters in the primary go on to the general election irrespective of party.  There doesn't need to be any voter party affiliation. The public just weeds the number of candidates down.

That is in fact how the system works here already, and in many places for local elections. But it should be adopted for all elections.  If it was, the system would be much different.

For example, in the last House Race, Harriet Hageman defeated Lynette Grey Bull, taking 132,206 votes to Gray Bull's 47,250.  Given the nature of the race, FWIW, Gray Bull did much better than people like to imagine, taking 25% of the vote in an overwhelmingly Republican state.  Incumbent Lynn Cheney was knocked out of the race in the primary, being punished for telling the truth about Дональд "The Insurrectionist" Trump.  But an interesting thing happens if you look at the GOP primary.

In that race, Harriet Hageman took 113,079 votes, for 66% of the vote, and Cheney took 49,339, for 29%.  Some hard right candidates took the minor balance. Grey Bull won in the primary with just 4,500 votes, however.

I'd also note here that Distributism in and of itself would have an impact on elections, as it would have a levelling effect on the money aspect of politics.  Consider this article by former Speaker of the House Tom Lubnau:

Tom Lubnau: Analyzing The Anonymous Mailers Attacking Chuck Gray


A person could ask, I suppose, of how this is an example, but it is.

Back to the Gray v. Nethercott race, Ms. Nethercott is a lawyer in a regional law firm. That's not distributist as I'd have it, as I'd provide that firms really ought to be local, as I discussed in yesterday's riveting installment.   But it is a regional law firm and depending upon its business model, she's likely responsible for what she brings in individually.  Indeed, the claim made during the race that she wanted the job of Secretary of State for a raise income was likely absurd.

But the thing here is that Nethercott, as explained by Lubnau, raised a total of $369,933, of which $304,503 were from individual donations.  That's a lot to spend for that office, but it was mostly donated by her supporters.

In contrast, Jan Charles Gray, Chuck Gray's father donated a total of $700,000 to Chuck Gray’s campaign, Chuck Gray donated $10,000 to his own campaign and others donated $25,994.

$700,000 is a shocking amount for that office, but beyond that, what it shows is that Nethercott's supporters vastly out contributed Gray's, except for Gray's father.  In a distributist society, it certainly wouldn't be impossible to amass $700,000 in surplus cash for such an endeavor, but it would frankly be much more difficult.

To conclude, no political system is going to convert people into saints.  But it's hard to whip people into a frenzy who are your friends and neighbors than it does people who are remote.  And its harder to serve the interest of money if the money is more widely distributed. Put another way, it's harder to tell 50 small business owners that that Bobo down in Colorado knows what she's talking about, than 50 people who depend on somebody else for a livelihood a myth.

Last prior:

Wednesday, March 6, 2024

The 2024 Legislative Sessions of other states.


January 20, 2024.


Utah

Utah's house has passed a bill to ban public transgender bathrooms.

January 25, 2024


Ohio

Ohio's legislature over road a veto and banned gender mutilation of minors and restricted those who have undergone gender mutilation from participating in athletic teams of the opposite gender.

January 31, 2024


New York

New York expanded the definition of rape, which apparently was narrowly defined by the previous law. The new law states:

 Section  1.  Sections  130.40,  130.45 and 130.50 of the penal law are

 REPEALED.

   § 2. Subdivisions 1 and 2 of section 130.00 of the penal law, subdivision 2 as amended by chapter 264 of the laws of  2003,  are  amended read as follows:

   1.  "[Sexual  intercourse]  VAGINAL  SEXUAL CONTACT" [has its ordinary meaning and occurs upon any penetration, however slight]  MEANS  CONDUCT BETWEEN  PERSONS  CONSISTING OF CONTACT BETWEEN THE PENIS AND THE VAGINA OR VULVA.

   2. (a) "Oral sexual [conduct] CONTACT" means conduct  between  persons consisting of contact between the mouth and the penis, the mouth and the anus, or the mouth and the vulva or vagina.

   (b)  "Anal  sexual  [conduct]  CONTACT"  means conduct between persons consisting of contact between the penis and anus.

   § 3. Section 130.25 of the penal law, as amended by chapter 1  of  the laws of 2000, is amended to read as follows:

 § 130.25 Rape in the third degree.

   A person is guilty of rape in the third degree when:

   1.  He  or  she engages in [sexual intercourse] VAGINAL SEXUAL CONTACT with another person who is incapable of consent by reason of some factor  other than being less than seventeen years old;

March 5, 2024

March 6, 2024


Arizona Governor Katie Hobbs vetoed a bill that would have made it a crime for noncitizens to enter the state through Mexico at any location other than a port of entry

Monday, March 4, 2024

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 1. How the barbarians took over the city.

The Agrarian's Lament: A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with t...:   

A sort of Agrarian Manifesto. What's wrong with the world (and how to fix it). Part 1. How the barbarians took over the city.

 As a bishop, it is my duty to warn the West! The barbarians are already inside the city.

Robert Cardinal Sarah

Alaric entering Athens, 395.

On August 6, 1979, Newsweek came out with a surprising cover depicting Theodore Roosevelt leading the 1st U.S. Volunteer Cavalry up Kettle Hill.  The caption was "Where Have All The Heroes Gone".  I can remember laying on the couch in the living room looking at the issue.  I would have been about fifteen.

That was right about the time the nation was getting ready to see Carter square off against Reagan, and if the author of that article thought the choices were uninspiring, I have to wonder what he'd think now.

Anyhow, in reading about the contest between Reagan and Carter I was compelled to ask my father, "What's the difference between the Republicans and the Democrats?", trying to figure out what it was, and what I was, in that context.  I'm actually surprised, in looking back, that I was asking this question at that age, as in my mind, this was earlier.  And in fact I may very well be remembering this inaccurate, as to when I asked this question and what brought it about.

I do recall his answer.  He informed me that "the Republicans are more conservative than the Democrats".

It was an interesting answer.  He didn't say that the Republicans were conservative or that the Democrats were not.  He said the Republicans were more conservative than the Democrats, implying that they were sort of in the middle.

I decided at the ripe old age of 12, or so, that I was more conservative, and therefore I was a Republican.

When I registered to vote six years later, I in fact registered as a Republican, which is what I thought I likely was.  It didn't last a real long time, however, as by age 20, I was registering as a Democrat.

Conservation was the reason why.  Even by my late teens I as clearly a conservationist, and I teetered on the edge of, and crossed into, environmentalism.  While I didn't see myself being on the political left, those around me did. I recall one friend of mine in junior college, who had known me since high school, remarking in a conversation about the Vietnam War protests that if I'd been college age at that time, I'd be in the protesters, a comment that really surprised me as I was in the National Guard at the time, and I was a defense hawk, part of the reason I'd originally registered as a Republican.  The now late mother of a friend of mine loaned me The Monkey Wrench Gang on the basis that I'd like it, and while I was surprised by that when I read the cover about a group of fictional who were basically environmental terrorists, I in fact did like the 1975 Edward Abby novel.  It probably didn't hurt that I had a crush on the daughter of that lender, the sister of one of my friends, and that entire family were obviously environmentally centered, eccentric, Democrats.

It wasn't a facade, however.  I wasn't a DINO, if there is such a thing.  Going through my undergraduate years and through law school, and into at least my first decade of practicing law, I remained a Democrat.  It was rural issues that did it.  The Democrats were for preserving the wilderness, at a time that the Reagan Republicans never saw a tree they didn't want to cut down.  The Democrats were for keeping Wyoming's wildlife a public resource when a Republican legislature wanted to give it to landowners in a bill, I'd note, that our current Congressman's father promoted.  The Republicans always saw wild lands as something to be exploited, the Democrats normally saw them as something to be preserved.

Ultimately I left the Democratic Party for the Republicans as I couldn't stomach being in a party that embraced death so closely.  I wasn't alone.  Really significant Wyoming Democrats, like Ray Hunkins, who had campaigned as Democrats, left the party and became Republican politicians.  The overall impact was a good one, however, for the state's GOP.  It took a party that was already highly independent and frankly middle of the road on most things, and made it more so.  It was a Wyoming Party.

Those days are dead and gone.

It's hard to describe where we are politically in this country today, and that's in no small part because it's hard to explain where we are culturally.  The absolute insanity of social movements in the Western World, unleashed since the annus horbillus of 1968, but with roots dating back at least to the 1790s, has created as sort of cultural hellscape which now, very late in the day, average people are reacting to, but reacting in way that expresses their ignorance of their own culture and existential nature.  It's been a long time in the making.

Some thirty years ago I was at a not very well done bachelor's party, no not one of that type, that I hosted for a friend getting married. At the party was a young man who had just been admitted to a university in New York.  He was pretty impressed with getting into it, and had already taken up calling New York City, "the city", even though he knew just about as little about NYC as I did.

At the party he raised the question of whether the United States was existentially a liberal, or conservative, nation.  In thinking about it there in my late 20s, when I was somewhat more liberal than I am now, I thought the country basically existentially liberal.

I'm not certain that I think that now.  But then, back then, in the late 1980s, being liberal didn't mean I had to pretend that biological truths weren't just that, truths.

Educated people, including educated conservatives like me, as that's basically what I am, are to a large extent baffled by the phenomenon of Donald Trump.  How, we wonder, could anyone vote for a person like him, particularly after he attempted a coup to overthrow the 2020 election?

The Judicial Coup of 2015 has everything to do with that, as we warned that it would, in 2015.

Why Americans, irrespective of position, ought to cringe over Obergefell


Yes, we warned what was in store:
And we warned about it more than once.

We educated people, including we social conservatives, had acclimated ourselves to accepting that an unelected body of jurist could decree social liberality on the society, and everyone had to accept it.  To a large extent, frankly, we grew comfortable with being conservatives of varying stripes, but not getting much of what we wanted.

Obergefell was clearly a bridge too far, and it was right from the beginning.  And what liberals promised, that "this would never mean", very rapidly turned out to be a whopping lie.

The Supreme Court tries a bit to mop up a dog's breakfast. Masterpiece Cakeshop, Ltd. v. Colorado Civil Rights Commission.


An argument on what you can and cannot think about stuff that people don't understand with implications you just don't expect but maybe ought to.. Fallout from Obergefell


The contempt that's come for evolutionary biology and basic nature out of the American left, and indeed, the European left, since 2015 has been epic.  But it didn't start in 2015.  It started well before, with major events marking the path.  May 9, 1960, the entire year of 1968, 1969, 1973.  What marked it all, during the very period in which the left embraced everything in nature outside of ourselves, was the rejection of our natures.  We didn't see ourselves as men in nature any longer, but like gods, outside of it.

What the left apparently they didn't grasp is that no matter what the educated conservative "establishment elite" was willing to accept, the rank and file, instinctively conservative middle, wasn't, and isn't, once things went too far.

For we brought nothing into the world, just as we shall not be able to take anything out of it.

If we have food and clothing, we shall be content with that.

Those who want to be rich are falling into temptation and into a trap and into many foolish and harmful desires, which plunge them into ruin and destruction.

For the love of money is the root of all evils, and some people in their desire for it have strayed from the faith and have pierced themselves with many pains.

1 Timothy, Chapter 6.

At the same time, however, a combination of two of the oldest malevolent forces in the world had already united to make any reaction abhorrent.  Ignorance had combined with greed.

People like to spout a lot of babble about the settlement of North America, and the United States, that is just that.  People imagine that hardworking benighted immigrants came in and built a new land out of the sweat of their brows.  Yes, there's an element of truth in that, but the larger truth is that they were massively assisted by their governments, which removed the native population by force at public expense, and then sold or gave the land to the settlers for no value or grossly undervalue.  It's impossible to look at what occured and not regard it as deeply immoral, and claims to the opposite as deeply hypocritical. When Wyoming politicians today proudly declare that they're fourth generation Wyoming rancher who built their enterprises from nothing but their own hard work, they're deluding themselves.  Their ancestors were, as a rule, dirt poor people who benefitted from what was effectively a government hand out, in part, and in part from a program that made that possible by what today would be regarded as ethnic genocide.

There's really no two ways about it.

Nonetheless, in being honest about it, we can also be honest about the fact that the beneficiaries of those programs did not have in mind killing people.  

They also largely didn't have in mind getting rich.

The goal was to have a family, and provide for it.

We recently spent a lot of time on our companion blog looking at the laws and social conditions prior to the fateful legislature of 1977.  Those laws were geared towards that end.  And, prior to the 1970s, the laws in the country largely were.  Laws  on "domestic" topics were geared towards the preservation of the family and the protection of children.

And before Ronald Reagan, the tax structure and the structure of the Federal Government was aimed at regulating excessive accumulation of wealth and reigning in big business. It was widely held, and correctly, that people needed protection against large business and that vast accumulation of wealth could result in the wealthy paying their own way.  The wealthy were not worshiped, and big business was not seen as the little man's friend.  

A figure like Donald Trump was not regarded as admirable.

Reagan came in and changed that, selling the public the lie that as the wealthy got wealthier everyone else did as well.  It made some sense, until you thought it out.  And to a certain degree its true, as the wealthier a society becomes, the wealthier everyone in it is.  But it only goes so far, and it didn't go nearly as far as its backers claimed.  Moreover, the advance of technology, accelerated by World War Two and the Cold War, marched on irrespective of tinkering with the tax rates, and that is likely what made the reason difference.

Something that didn't withstand the tinkering was the assault on education.  The Great Depression, followed by World War Two, followed by the Cold War, had emphasized the need for science and engineering like nothing else.  World War Two, in turn, flooded universities with servicemen after the war, making college educations common.  But with Reagan came a reduction in support for science and engineering.  University remained important, but degrees suffered value erosion.  Degrees like law, which could be societally beneficial, or destructive, evolved towards the latter, as a Reagan era emphasis on greed set in.

Just as societal structures started to break down due to the battering rams of the left, therefore, they were replaced by a lack of education and an emphasis that everything was about money.  It was not a combined intentional attack.  The left would not have made everything about money, and the right would not have broken down societal structures, but the combined assault of both had that effect.  This left an American, and Western, culture with no existential values and nothing to measure individual self-worth other than economic success.  Like the concurrent assault of Germanic, Slavic, and Eastern tribes in the Middle Ages, the damage on the American metaphorical Rome was too much to bear.

Rome, of course, had the Church. And as Rome fell, the Church stepped in, preserving what was worthwhile of the existing culture, and educating the Barbarians.  The United States is not, however, Imperial Rome.  When Rome fell, which was over time, the Roman culture could look towards the Church and realize that it held existential truths Roman civilization did not.  As the American culture falls today, it has instead the adulterated American Civil Religion, a light and reduced content variant of original strict Protestant sects that reflected the product of the Reformation.  And people retain their native instincts, although not in a restrained or educated fashion.

This has left the reeling street level populist reacting against things they know are wrong, but mixing them with ignorance and confusion.  That it's absurd that some claim there are more than two genders is self-evident, and wrong, and that steps like Chloe's law must be taken to combat it is apparent.  What is not is that this depraved state of affairs stems from one that divorced sex from marriage, or the concept that marriage is natural, and not a set of highly advanced sexual dates which allow for discarded partners.  Hence, you have some railing against sexual mutilation, who practice chemical sterilization, or who are serial polygamists themselves.

And the substitution of money as the supreme value over family remains in the same class, with some seriously believing, as some have asserted since the 1980s, that God basically endorses their occupations as surely he must.  It can't be the case, they think, that their occupations could do harm. Therefore, you have those who, like James Watt, can't grasp the thought that natural resources must be conserved, and that this is conservative, let alone that there are things that are being economically exploited which may very well destroy the ability for us to exist.  In their heart of hearts there are those on the populist right who believe that the use of fossil fuels is Divinely sanctioned, just as there are those on the left who believe that altering our psychological and physical natures is some sort of existential, if not Devine, right.

This sort of thing has put us in the untenable position we now find ourselves it.

It ought to be possible, in other words, for a thoughtful conservative to oppose infanticide, genocide, and ecocide.  That is, it ought to be perfectly possible to oppose abortion, gender mutilation, Russian aggression in Ukraine while supporting conservation and indeed be concerned about the environment. That would, in fact, be thoughtful conservatism.

There's no need, and indeed no sense whatsoever, in feeling that because you are worried about gender disorder, that you need to support Putin in Ukraine, or hail a serial polygamist as somebody who presents as a modern Cyrus the Great.

But where to go from here, especially for a thoughtful conservative.

It's clear at this point that neither the modern Republican Party or Democratic Party are going to do anything to solve this. They are both too far corrupted in an existential sense. The Democratic Party is virtually at war with Human Nature and the Devine, while the GOP is at war with intelligence, Science and thought.  Between the two parties, the Democrats have revived a belief in democracy they lost in 1973, however, whereas the Republicans view everyone who doesn't agree with their Caudillo as a class enemy.

The populists know that something is deeply amiss with the assault on human nature. The progressives know that there's something deeply wrong with the assault on science and nature.  Progressives sense that a worship of money is wrong, whereas the Republicans are outright worshiping it.  Populists sense that a worship of yourself as a demigod is perverse, but only embrace that up to the point that it's not personally inconvenient.

National Conservatives and their fellow travelers claim they're the answer.  C. C. Peckhold, a university professor who seems to be in this camp, gives about as good of a justification of this as can be given in an episode of Catholic Answers live that's well worth listing to, but also  a little disturbing in some ways as well.  Like Patrick Dineen, he's big on "order".

What he seems to be missing, in so far as that interview goes, is that corporate capitalism has imposed its own order.  He regards "liberalism", as in the classic meaning of this word, to be the problem, and seeks a "post liberal order", and is one of the contributors to the Post Liberal Podcast whose blog we've linked in our companion site as its interesting.  What they miss, however, is that what they are seeking is effete, which to a large degree is what took down "post liberalism", by which them mean the pre liberal ancient regime, and that it was also corrupt, as concentration of order encourages corruptness.  Indeed, that's what we have now, to a degree, concentrated in capitalism.

Only in a Distributist Agrarianism, by whatever name, is the solution to this found.

Sunday, March 3, 2024

Wars and Rumors of War, 2024. Part 3. The Putin's Cheerleaders Edition.

February 13, 2024


You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Matthew, Chapter 24.
If your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position.
Mitt Romney

Mitt Romney, whom I did not care much for as a Presidential candidate, has gone on to be an absolute hero in the Senate.  It's tragic that he's leaving this year.

Equally tragic is that the once pro defense Republican Party has not only retreated into isolationism, it's gone into America First isolationism, last seen advanced by the likes of the Bund and Lindbergh just prior to World War Two. 

February 15, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

The Ukrainians sank the Caesar Kunikov amphibious ship near Alupka with naval drones.

North Korea v. South Korea

North Korea announced that it will take a more aggressive approach to disputed waters near its border with South Korea.

Myanmar

Myanmar announced it will begin to commence its citizens, male and female, to fill a 60,000 man shortage.

February 17, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

Avdiivka has fallen to the Russians after months of fighting.


Severe ammunition shortages are becoming a factor in Ukraine, something that has set in since Republicans following Putin Fan Boy Donald Trump's views have held up aid.

Germany and France both signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine on February 16.


Putin was bragging up the T-90

M'eh

And now the Russian Navy.

2011 Navalny designed poster about Putin's United Russia party, declaring it to be a "party of crooks and thieves".

Alexei Navalny became the latest Putin opponent in Russia, or outside of it, to die under mysterious circumstances. The 47-year-old politician reportedly collapsed in a penal colony, where he was serving a sentence for "extremism".  Trump mouthpiece Lord Haw Haw Carlson excused the death in an interview.

February 18, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War.

A series of rising reactions to the failure of the US to provide ongoing aid to Ukraine is resulting in ramping pressure on the weak Leader of the House, Mike Johnson.

Johnson came into office declaring himself on a mission from God (literally) but so far he's pretty much been a puppet of Trump's, the strings being his extraordinarily weak position, one that is now even weaker as Santos was predictably replaced with a Democrat.  Between the refusal to act on the border due to Trump and Ukraine, there's frankly a pretty good chance, in my view, that the Democrats might flip the House in the fall.

At any rate, we'd first note that Congress went on vacation without acting.  President Zelenskyy commented that dictators did not go on vacation.

President Biden urged Congress to act.

Vice President Harris pledged US support.

National Review has an editorial aimed at Johnson urging he get off his duff and do something.

A bill in the House provides 47.7 billion for Ukraine, $10.4 billion for Israel, with has strong House report for some interesting reasons, $4.9 billion for the Indo Pacific, including Taiwan and $2.4 billion for supporting U.S. Central Command operations, including funding to offset efforts to deter Houthi
militant attacks in the Red Sea.

Matt Gaetz stated: ". . . I think that is a lot more significant to my constituents than which dude gets to run Crimea"

Presumably one of those things is getting conscripted when Poland and the Baltic States are invaded, which may well be coming, and fighting the first real toe to toe, peer to peer war, since World War Two.

About 400 Russians have been arrested for attending Navalny memorials.

Mexican Border Crisis

Democrats are also exploiting the GOP's Trump ordered failure to act on the border by exploiting the topic, which is now becoming an asset for them.

February 19, 2024

Hamas Israeli War

Israel set a deadline for the start of Ramadan in which it will invade Rafah if its hostages are not freed.

That would be March 10.

While seemingly missed, this may be a change in position towards a negotiated resolution of the conflict, as prior to this Israel has essentially taken the position that it will not be restrained, no matter what.

Papua New Guinea Tribal Warfare

53 people were killed in intertribal warfare on Papua.

February 20, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War
I don’t like this reality. Vladimir Putin is an evil war criminal.Vladimir Putin will not lose this war.
Mike Johnson last week.  Lindbergh said the same thing about Hitler.

Defecting Russian helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov was murdered in Spain.

Donald Trump posted that somehow the death of a Russian opposition leader who was put in a gulag by his Trump's buddy Putin, was sort of about him.


February 21, 2024

Hamas Israeli War

The US vetoed a cease fire resolution in the UN.

February 22, 2024

Trump in a Fox News interview stated, regarding nuclear war, the following:
I worry about their safety too. These people, everyone in this room is in great danger. We have a nuclear weapon that if you hit New York, South Carolina is gone

FWIW, and Trump is receiving criticism on this, the yield of a nuclear weapon is sufficient by a long measure to destroy South Carolina from a strike in New York.  Prevailing wind patters, also, would not carry the fallout there.

Anyhow, I'm noting this here as a recent item on NPR's Politics discussed Trump's fear of nuclear war, which apparently is very pronounced. 

I don't give Trump credit for deep thought s on very much.   The Internet has allowed a lot of those in the shallow end of the pool to have voice as if they know what they're talking about, and frankly I'd include Trump in those in the shallow end of the pool.  But apparently nuclear war is one thing he actually thinks about and has opinions on, and he's afraid of it.

That doesn't really surprise me too much.

Trump came of age in in the 1960s which was at a time that the fear of nuclear war was quite pronounced.  It remained that way in the 1970s, and by the early 1980s I recall being forced to read  A Republic Of Grass. which urged that we surrender to the Soviet Union, essentially, right then and there rather than face the prospect of nuclear war, which lefties were certain Ronald Reagan was going to get us into.  I recall some on the right saying "there are worse things than death" in response to such things, which is harsh, but true.

But if your values end at yourself, maybe there aren't.

Russo Ukrainian War

Prominent Russian milblogger Andrei Morozov committed suicide after refusing Russian military command orders to delete his reports on high Russian casualty rates around Avdiivka.

Iranian sources told Reuters that the country provided hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia in early January. 

That certainly helps Russia, but it also shows that industrially its a shadow of the former USSR.

Putin gave a car to the North Korean Communist Monarch.

February 23, 224

Houthi's

The Houthis on sent shippers and insurers a formal notice of a ban on vessels they deem linked to Israel, the U.S. and UK from sailing in waters bordering Yemen. They also declared they are going to use submarine weapons.

Russo Ukrainian War

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine has a right to use its Western-supplied weapons to defend itself against Russia, up to and including targeting sites within Russia.

February 24, 2024

Armenia is suspending its membership in Russia's Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

February 25, 2024

Houthi's

The US and UK struck 18 Houthi targets yesterday.

Cont:

Russo Ukrainian War

In a speech marking the two-year point in the war, President Zylenskyy indicated 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have lost their lives so far, which is actually about half of what I previously saw estimated some time ago.

Two separate measures are being introduced to provide aid to Ukraine that go around Mike Johnson, who has proven to be a Trump flunkie.

King Charles praised President Zylenskyy for his countrymen exhibiting something that Johnson is not, that being courage.

Nigeria

Fifteen Catholics were murdered at Sunday Mass.

February 26, 2024

Hamas v. Israel

The PM of Israel made it clear that it is Israel's intent to enter Rafah no matter what.  A ceasefire will merely delay that.

Russo Ukrainian War

Two separate discharge petitions to bring funding for Ukraine are being introduced into the House on different bills, one being the bill that has already passed the Senate.  There seems to be optimism that one of them, that being the unique House bill in particular, will pass in this end run around politically castrated Trump eunuch, Mike Johnson.

ISW reports that there were more Russians casualties taking Avdiivka, 47,000, than in the entire Soviet Afghan War.

February 29, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

Russia has taken Stepove, seven miles northwest of Avdiivka. Ukrainian have pulled back from Stepove and the neighboring village of Sieverne.

Maybe the Russians will put up a monument to Mike Johnson there.

March 1, 2024

Russo Ukrainian War

A Ukrainian missile strike killed 19 troops, injured 12 and Colonel Roman Kozhukhov, a respected commander in the occupied Donetsk in Ukraine.  They were at a medal ceremony.

Donald Trump's Minister of Propaganda, Tucker "Lord Haw Haw" Carlson, stated that Donald Trump's object of affection, Vlad Putin, was stating something "dumb" when he justified the assault on Ukraine on the object of denazification.

China v. Taiwan

The PRC Coast Guard patrolled prohibited and restricted waters around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen.

Mexican Border Crisis

Both President Biden and would be president Trump were on the Mexican border yesterday.

March 2, 2024

Hamas v. Israel

The United States is going to air drop humanitarian relief into Gaza.

Russo Ukrainian War

Transnistria, breakaway sliver of Moldova, which itself is a Cyrillic using region of Romania that's a separate country as the Russians oppose Moldova uniting with Romania, asked Russia for "protection" from Moldova.

March 3, 2024

Houthis v. the West

A fertilizer ship hit days ago by the Houthis has sunk.

Russo Ukrainian War

For unknown reasons, North Korean munitions shipments to Russia appear to have stopped.

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