This is what happens when a dumb ass paranoid amendment to the Constitution is made.
Wednesday, January 7, 2026
Abortion in Wyoming and the Law of Unintended Consequences.
Friday January 7, 1916. Mighty Oregon.
Austro Hungarian troops retreated at Mojkovac, although the battle would go on for another eleven days with Montenegrins ultimately withdrawing.
British cavalry and artillery engaged the Ottomans at Sheikh Sa'ad.
The University of Oregon's fight song, Mighty Oregon, premiered.
Last edition:
Thursday, January 6, 1916. The Battle of Sheikh Sa'ad.
Labels: 1910s, 1916, Austro Hungarian Army, Battle of Mojkovac, Battle of Sheikh Sa'ad, boats and ships, British Army, Iraq, Montenegrin Army, Montenegro, Ottoman Army, Royal Navy, Siege of Kut, World War One
Saturday, January 7, 1911. The first downhill skiing race took place at Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
The first downhill skiing race took place at Crans-Montana, Switzerland.
Last edition:
Monday, January 2, 1911. "Ahí te van las hojas, mándame más tamales"
Labels: 1910s, 1911, Joseph M. Carey, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Pascual Orozco, Porfirio Díaz, Wyoming
Monday, January 7, 1901. Attacking railroads.
Boers attacked British positions along the Delagoa Bay Railway.
Colorado cannibal Alfred Packer was released from prison after serving 18 years due to his physical condition and "advanced age" of nearly 59 years.
Last edition:
Saturday, January 5, 1901. Ban Johnson disses the National League.
Abortion remains legal in Wyoming after state high court strikes down bans
Abortion remains legal in Wyoming after state high court strikes down bans: Wyoming Supreme Court rules two bans passed by state lawmakers are unconstitutional.
Abortion-rights advocates cheer Wyoming Supreme Court ruling; opponents plan constitutional amendment
Abortion-rights advocates cheer Wyoming Supreme Court ruling; opponents plan constitutional amendment: Governor calls for a rehearing and urges lawmakers to draft a constitutional amendment to let Wyoming voters settle the matter.
Tuesday, January 6, 2026
Wednesday, January 6, 2021. The Coup.
I wasn't going to mark this date. This tragic event is only five years in our past, and therefore it is much too early, really, to be able to fully apprise it.
But attempt to apprise it we must do, and the coup that started on January 6, 2021 did not fail, it succeeded, and whether the fascistic/Francoist revolution it seeks to bring about will succeed or fail is not yet know.
The coup did not fail, as our justice system failed. Trump could easily have been in court within six months and sentenced within seven. Unfortunately, our criminal justice system moves as slowly as Baby Boomers at Walmart as its controlled by them, as is much of our society. This insurrectionist is now in charge.
But will he succeed?
Most Americans do not support the would be caudillo Donald Trump and most are not part of a muddled fascist/Franoist/New Apostolic Reformation movement, or even have its world view. But those who do are running the country right now, aided and abetted by people like opportunistic Marco Rubio and a compliant Supreme Court. The worst tests are yet to come. This year, 2026, is going to be absolutely awful, least we are spared by some sort of Divine Intervention (which I note seriously, not in jest).
Usually, however, people get exactly what they deserve in terms of politics. The roots of the populist revolution go back at least as far as 1973 and have been brewing for decades now. We cannot expect that the fruits of political neglect can be harvest and discarded overnight. We are paying for our errors, and stand to likely pay a heavier price yet.
But the country has come through such things before. The Revolution itself was one, the Civil War a second.
May God grant that we get through this quickly, and with as little damage to the world as possible.
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 113th Edition. Some things you aren't hearing much about right now and some things that require explanation that we're not getting. The Venezuelan Distraction Edition.
Hmmmm. . . .
The U.S. attacked Venezuela over the weekend as its a major drug exporter to the U.S., or maybe because we wanted to liberate the country from Maduro, or maybe because it has oil.
One of those things.
Anyhow,
Somethings we aren't hearing much about now.
- Where are those Epstein files?
Where, where?
Still delayed.
Marjorie Taylor Greene, whose leaves office today, claimed Trump would attack Venezuela as nothing distracts like war. She said that, not me.
I'm not saying that he attacked Venezuela for that reason, although I don't put it past him. But we sure aren't hearing much about them now, are we?
They could have dropped the entire file in a giant Playboy Ephebophilia, Collectors Edition, complete with underaged centefolds, and nobody would have noticed.
- What's up with the economy?
Do you know? I don't, and I follow the economy.
- What's going on in the Russo Ukrainian War?
Trump was going to instantly end the war, but it turned out to be hard.
Over the last month he was praising Putin, and then sort of praising Ukraine, and now we don't hear anything about the war at all. Utterly nothing.
I'm sure Trump didn't end the war.
By The image created by © Yuriy Kvach, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=31547668
Somethings we need explanations on.
- Greenland?
What is the real source of Trump's fascination with Greenland? The strategic need line is complete and utter crap. If somebody is actually telling him that, they need to be dope slapped into the 21st Century.
I don't really think it's Trump, as I don't think Trump is smart enough to know anything about Greenland. Having watched him now for years, I'm pretty much convinced that he was a fairly good salesman at one time, but he was never very intelligent. Now he's demented so he's not even a good salesman.
It's something or somebody else, or . . .
- Putin and Trump?
We have to seriously consider once again why Donald Trump is a Russian asset.
We know that he is a Russian asset, but we don't know why. He may be simply because he likes them for some reason. Or he may have really bought into some weird vision of the world that's centered in the 18th Century, in which he's King Donald the Demented and Putin is Tsar Vlad the Magnificent. Btu with the threats on Greenland we need to at least consider the possibility that Trump is a full-blown Russian asset as they have something on him, or are giving something to him.
That sounds extreme, but a US that pulls back to the Western Hemisphere and wrecks NATO is a gift to Russia. And it appears to be happening. Putin had been a backer of Maduro but he didn't lift a finger to help him once our illegitimate head of state caused that illegitimate head of state to be seized.
And Putin has been oddly quiet.
It's clear that at least for the time being the relationship between the United States and Europe is wrecked. If you were writing a script for a Russian mole to occupy the White House, even Tom Clancy couldn't do better than this.
Harry Dexter White. . . it's sort of happened before.
- Lindsey Graham.
What's going on with Lindsey Graham. Unlike Trump, he's not dumb. His complete and utter sycophancy needs some explanation.
- Stephen and Katie Miller
Okay, this is going to be delicate, but there's something really weird about Stephen Miller playing Joseph Goebbels and his wife playing, well, Joseph Goebbels.
They're both Jewish.
Miller is the chief proponent of White Anglo Saxon Protestantism in the administration, and he ain't one. I don't know the ethnicity of his wife, but she could pass for a Mizrahi Jew.
This might not quite be as weird as it sounds, although its downright dangerous for them. Goebbels had been a Communist and you can find plenty of Nazis who were drawn from German populations that were repressed in the most violent ways during the Third Reich, but there's the lesson. The policies that Miller advocates for would, in the end, put him and Katie in the hold of a boat and deport them to a place that people who think like him would think he would find more to their liking, or at least theirs.
Before this sounds too one sided, there's a real lesson for Catholics supporting Trump. His people don't think you are very American either.
Careful Steve and Katie. . . this is how a lot of your fellow travelers see you.
- The weather.
It's been super warm this winter. No winter at all.
How long do we intend to ignore this?
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 112th Edition. Clinton calls Trump's bluff.
Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 1. The reap what you sow edition.
January 1, 2026.
China is imposing a 55% tariff on some (it appears quite a bit of) beef from Brazil, Australia and the United States.
In Casper, Vintage Wine and Spirits and Wyoming Rib and Chop are closed as of this morning.
Donald Trump vetoed a water project in Colorado which was passed unanimously by Congress, and which is in a district that is represented by MAGA Lauren Boebert and which voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump mostly, it appears, as an act of revenge on Colorado.
The costs of at least 350 drugs in the U.S. are expected to rise in 2026.
Also, according to Trump Golf Tracker, Donald Trump has golfed 79 days out of 347 days since returning to office (22.8% of the presidency), at a taxpayer cost of $110,600,000.
The price of oil today is generally $57.41/bbl, below US profitability. Wyoming oil is generally at $57.84/bbl.
Coal rose to $107.50 /T on December 31, 2025, up 0.80% from the previous day. Over the past month, coal has fallen 0.78%, and is down 13.72% compared to the same time last year.
January 6, 2026
Venezuela takeover has Wyoming oil industry bracing for market changes: Though Wyoming politicos regard Trump's actions as necessary, oil executives do not anticipate immediate windfall.
There's no part of this that will be a positive for the U.S. economy, or Wyoming's. There's been too much oil on the market now for years, which has made Wyoming's petroleum economy unstable. More oil will simply make it worse, much worse. Sinking a bunch of infrastructure into a foreign country will make it worse.
This will be an economic problem, if not a disaster.
And here's another GOP bit of great economic news:
Wyoming spent $2.4M on hunger relief during shutdown emergency: Food insecurity is soaring in the state due to inflation and other factors, food relief experts say.
Last edition:
Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 13. Disassociation.
Labels: 119th Congress, 2020s, 2025, Chuck Gray, Coal, Economics, Government, Health Care, Petroleum, Populism, Republican Party, Taxes, Unions, Wyoming, Wyoming's boom and bust economy
First set of Labels: 2020s, 2026, Agriculture, Australia, Brazil, China, Donald Trump, Food, restaurants and bars, Taxes, The Second Trump Administration, United States, Wyoming, Wyoming (Casper)
Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 1. The Return of the Neo Con Edition.
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.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
James Madison
January 2, 2026.
The United States v. Iran
We start off this year with the no more forever wars president threatening to intervene in Iran.
Iran is a bad actor, without a doubt, but what we'd particularly note here is that Trump's policy of intervention is beginning to look a lot like the Neo Con policy. A person can like that, or not, but it's not what he was promising at all. I'd heard various Trump supporters cite the "no more forever wars" line as (one of) their reasons for supporting him.
January 3, 2026
United States v. Venezuela
The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and took Maduro and his wife prisoner.
No Declaration of War exists, of course, and there's no Congressional authorization for the use of force. This is, therefore, an illegal operation.
The news is too early to really make any definitive predictions about how this will turn out. Wars, however, tend to end when the attacked party decides they are over. Maybe this will tip the scales in Venezuela and things will change. Or maybe his followers dig in and carry on, in which case we are now committed to a wider conventional war, and perhaps a following guerilla war.
U.S. Delta Force seizes Venezuelan leader, sources say
US military captures Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro after striking military sites
The US Is Attempting Regime Change In Venezuela
Cont:
Trump's comments on the raid on Maduro:
As usual, when he reads a prepared statement, he sounds awful. While called to address the illegal attack in Venezuela, it meandered into the usual Trump mental mush addressing various Trump favorite topics and fantasies. Use of the National Guard in various states ended up being addressed by the clearly senile illegal occupant of the Oval Office.1
Trump has made it clear the U.S. intends to occupy Venezuela, apparently forgetting that simply seizing the head of state doesn't amount to a full surrender of anyone opposing a U.S. presence. This will require thousands of U.S. troops on a continent in which we've never had boots on the ground. People aligned with Maduro have no reason to cooperate with the US at all, and have plenty of reason not to.
Inside Venezuela there were protests over the U.S. action. Outside of the country Venezuelan expats celebrated the news.
Trump also made it clear that he intends to reverse the fifty year old nationalization of Venezuelan oil. Either Trump, or more likely somebody in his regime, has a real pre World War One view of the world, as this example of imperialism and gunboat diplomacy makes clear. Trump actually cited the Monroe Doctrine and his new security priorities.
Trump justified the action on the basis of ending Venezuelan drug exports to the U.S.
By way of a set of predictions, and knowing more about the use of military force that Donald Trump does, if the U.S. isn't in complete control of the country within thirty days, this will evolve into a guerilla war requiring no less than 100,000 U.S. troops. If the U.S. hasn't turned the country over to Venezuelans within one year, it'll evolve into a low grade guerilla war requiring no less than 50,000 boots on the ground.
January 4, 2026
United States v. Venezuela
So where are we now?
Yesterday it looked like, for awhile, that effectively what the US had done was to have mounted a coup of the Venezuelan government with the silent complicency of Venezuelan VP Delcy Rodríguez, sidestepping Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado Parisca.
Then came Trump's babbling senile statement about the operation.
Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as the country's President. She's just as left wing and Maduro, and she immediately indicated that she regard Maduro as the President and that she's not cooperating with the US.
So, what was achieved? We don't know, but unless we're going to do a full scale invasion of Venezuela, all we may have done is replace one left wing leader with another.
A bit closer to home, sort of:
Well, of course they did. Was there any doubt?
January 5, 2026
Yemeni Civil War
Saudi backed forces retook Mukalla.
Nigeria
Gunmen killed 30 in Kasuwan-Daji.
Syria
Britain and France carried out a joint airstrike late Saturday on an underground facility where members of the ISIL were located.
United States v. Venezuela
Pope Leo XIV commented on Venezuelan independence yesterday, stating:
The good of the beloved Venezuelan people must prevail over every other consideration and lead us to overcome violence and to undertake paths of justice and peace, safeguarding the country’s sovereignty, ensuring the rule of law enshrined in the Constitution, respecting the human and civil rights of each person and of all, and working to build together a serene future of collaboration, stability, and concord, with special attention to the poorest who suffer because of the difficult economic situation.
Columbian guerilla groups Unión Camilista Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) issued a warning to the US about the US having a presence in Venezuela.
FARC is a Communist guerilla movement while the ELN is a "Catholic Communist" or Liberation Theology guerilla movement. Columbia is their main focus, but they operate in Venezuela.
While the raid has been portrayed as lacking casualties on the U.S. side, U.S. troops were in fact wounded and have been air evacuated to the U.S.
Something being reported this morning:
January 6, 2022
United States v. Venezuela
Wyoming’s Barrasso, Lummis back Trump’s Venezuelan invasion, Hageman silent: Rep. Hageman, who’s running to replace Lummis, has been mum on the military strikes and Maduro’s capture.
Hageman's failure to say anything is really interesting. MAGA boosted the platform of "no more forever wars" but the US has been fighting everywhere, and is threatening to attack a NATO ally, Denmark, over Greenland, an act that would be deeply immoral and flat out insane. Indeed, the fact that the country is being lead by a mad man is increasingly clear, with most Republicans doing nothing about it.
Wyoming has had a strong commitment to the military. Indeed, an overly strong one as not only do an unusually large number of Wyomingites volunteer for military service, which is admirable, the state had nearly supported a military against the government attitude in recent years. Now, with it appearing that the US might send Wyoming's sons and daughters to die in Venezuelan jungles while doing something that will gut the state's oil industry, some may be having second thoughts. Hageman may be hedging her bets for her Senate run, or she may actually be among those who are horrified by the insane neo colonialism of the Trump interregnum.
Footnotes:
1. A real irony is present here in that Maduro was not the legitimate head of state, at this point, of Venezuela, and Donald Trump is not the legitimate head of state of the United States.
Related threads:
What we actually did and are doing.
Labels: Donald Trump, Nicolás Maduro, Predictions, The Madness of King Donald, United States v. Venezuela
Labels: 2020s, 2026, Conspiracy Theories, Delcy Rodríguez, Donald Trump, Marco Rubio, Nicolás Maduro, The Madness of King Donald, United States v. Venezuela, Venezuela
Last edition:
Wars and Rumors of War, 2025. Part 10 (the final edition for 2025). The Gunboat Diplomacy Edition.
Court Watch, Part IV.
Weston County, Wyoming, courthouse.
The Justice Department has sued California to block new congressional district boundaries approved by California voters last week.
It's leaving the Texas crap districts alone, however.
In Utah, a Court blocked an effort to prevent their new commission designed districts, which features, gasp, a Democratic seat.
Cont:
Trump ordered the Justice Department to investigate links Jeffrey Epstein had to prominent Democrats and institutions including former President Bill Clinton and former treasury secretary, Larry Summers. Read as he bounces off the wall in panic like a grade school dodge ball. Bondi, of course, a loyal sycophant, appointed a prosecutor.
November 15, 2025
Wyoming Supreme Court Pauses Judge's Order For More School Counselors, Computers
November 17, 2025
* * *
November 18, 2025
A Federal Court in Texas has blocked the state from using its recently redrawn Congressional District map.
Oops.
This will be appealed, but if the decision is upheld it would mean that the five GOP (probably) seats that the state added won't be, while California, in a recent election, added five.
Oops.
Additionally, early indicators are that Texas Hispanics are following the national tread and are becoming disenchanted with the GOP, so some Texas districts may swing Democratic on their own.
Oops.
All of this could mean that the 2026 election could see the House not only swing Democratic, but perhaps massively so, and that some of the Returning Republicans are no longer big fans of Trump, to which those survivors will be reassessing their loyalty to Trump.
November 21, 2015
Sen. Elissa Slotkin, Sen. Mark Kelly, and Reps. Jason Crow, Chris Deluzio, Maggie Goodlander and Chrissy Houlahan, all veterans, released a video urging member of the armed forces not to follow illegal orders. Donald Trump is now threatening them with prosecution for sedition, and the death penalty, which is ironic, as Trump is a seditionist.
A Federal Court ordered the illegal Trump deployment of National Guardsmen to Washington D.C. to come to an end.
November 24, 2025
The North Dakota Supreme Court upheld the state's abortion ban, causing abortion to again become illegal in the state.
cont:
Federal criminal indictments against former FBI Director James Comey and New York Attorney General Letitia James were dismissed after a finding the prosecutor was not lawfully appointed.
December 3, 2025
Two well known names from the state's Republican politics.
December 4, 2025
Family of Colombian man killed in U.S. strike files human rights challenge
December 5, 2025
Headline in CST:
Court allows Texas maps
A Federal grand jury declined to indict New York Attorney General Letitia James on mortgage fraud.
December 12, 2025
The DOJ failed a second time to indict Letitia James
cont:
The National Trust for Historic Preservation has sued to stop construction of the giant White House ballroom.
December 16, 2025
December 18, 2025
December 29, 20205
Sued For Defamation, Former State Senator Says WyoFile Should Be Sued Too
December 31, 2025
Deposition testimony of Jack Smith.
From the deposition:
President Trump was by a large measure the most culpable and most responsible person in this conspiracy. These crimes were committed for his benefit. The attack that happened at the Capitol…does not happen without him.
January 6, 2026
The big news, of course, is that an illegitimate foreign head of state has been indicted in the United States brought here in a raid by an illegitimate head of state who has experience with the criminal justice system himself.
Total bogosity.
In other news, and in more bogosity of a sorts, the National Rifle Association is suing the NRA Foundation, a trust that benefits the NRA in what partially can be attributed to an ongoing inter NRA feud.
That things were going wrong at the NRA was pretty evident for quite some time. Things are still going wrong at the NRA. The organization was run for decades by Wayne LaPierre who followed in the footsteps of Haron Carter in fundamentally changing the organization.
Carter rose to power in the organization in 1977. Prior to that date the organization had been agnostic on gun control. Following that it moved to being an ardent opponent.
It was under Wayne LaPierre, however, that the organization became radical, frequently using extreme claims to raise funds. His personal life a bit of a mystery, but he was undoubtedly successful in building up the NRA which became effectively a fundraising arm of the Republican Party, which it remains in spite of LaPierre's fall in a corruption trial. While LaPierre is gone, the current NRA maintains the script, even though its numbers are falling dramatically off. It will, for instance, no longer issue a print edition of the American Rifleman starting this year.
What exactly this trial entials I don't know. It'll be interesting to watch. It's already accused the Foundation of being run by the disgruntled.
At any rate, while NRA concerns about gun control were well placed into the 1990s, the supposed threats they posed were really waning by late in that decade and the organization has been crying wolf for years. Gun owners know that and have been dropping out of it, tired of the message that Stalingrad is right around the corner. Moderate Republicans who are horrified by Trump have not been impressed with NRA's ongoing drumbeat for him. The LaPierre tactics that lead to its rise, and fall, foreshadowed the rise and tactics of MAGA to some degree, and like a lot of things touched by Trump, the organization appears to be dying. In recent years, it's support for Trump have lead to claims of hypocrisy by some on the left.
A sad thing is that the NRA really does do some very important firearms work. It supports shooting programs, matches and range safety in a major way. There's nothing to replace it in these areas.
Last edition:
Court Watch, Part III.
Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2025 White House Vandalization, California (Los Angeles), California National Guard, Court, Court Watch, The Second Trump Administration, transgenderism, University of Wyoming, Wyoming (Glenrock)
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