A nationwide roundup of anarchist resulted in the arrest of the perpetually pissed off looking Emma Goldman. She was released on September 23. William McKinley, who had been shot by Leon Czolgosz, an anarchist, continued to recover.
The U.S. Treasury announced a massive bond buy back.
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Crook led his hungry troops away from the smoldering village at Slim Buttes and headed for the Black Hills, pursued by the Sioux which harried them. Captain Anson Mills, and two battalions of the Third Cavalry captured a Miniconjou village Crazy Horse and his followers attempted to rescue the camp and its headman, (Old Man) American Horse (there were two Plains Indian chiefs by that name). They failed. American Horse was wounded and died in spite of an Army surgeon's effort to save him.
Something is finally going on causing a definite shift in views, and support, for Donald Trump.
This was my through at 3:00 a.m. when the dog woke me up. I started to read the news items for the day shortly after that.
And then, taking a look at the blogs I follow, I ran across this:
Something New Is Happening. Republicans Are Stopping Me to Say Thank You.
For years the reaction from most Republicans was anger. Lately it's been something else.
Adam Kinzinger is right, something is happening.
It was Lincoln who is attributed as saying; "You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time."*I've thought of that from time to time over the last two years as it seems like Trump has managed to pull off fooling a lot of the people a lot of the time. Having said that, he never fooled all of the people at any one time. Frankly, if every eligible American had voted, he wouldn't be President.
Donald Trump is a horrible human being and he reflects the worst in American culture in every fashion. Beyond that, he reflects the wort of the wealthy. That so many have willingly followed where he was leading, which was never clear in the first place, is simply amazing and speaks very poorly of Americans.
But the fact of the matter is that Americans actually never wanted to go where he was leading.
Boiled down to its essence, Trump reflected a nativist, isolationist, view that's always existed in American culture. At various times that view has dominated the country. We just don't recall that as it hasn't dominated it since December 7, 1941. It came back as the voting class aged into a demographic where the lack of cooperation and involvement in the globe and its result was forgotten. The Great Depression/World War Two generation is dead.
Trump also reflected an American culture that was ill at ease with much that the progressive left stood for. Transgenderism, multiculturalism, economic globalism, were all things that were on people's minds in various degrees. Biden's failure to control illegal immigration over the Mexican border was the final straw for a lot of people for various reasons. While that was a real problem, it also unleashed racist nativism that most Americans had assumed was a thing of the past, but which very much turned out not to be.
And then there were those who voted for him, some holding their noses, for a host of other reasons. The Democrats failed to learn that the seas of blood from infanticide prohibited many voters from considering them where they otherwise would. As AOC stated, "Woke 1 was weird" and that prevented many from voting for Democrats. Trump left Biden with the disastrous surrender in Afghanistan and many blamed, and still blame, Biden for that. And Biden was a flat out horrifically bad candidate in 2024 given his very obvious mental decline.
What was always obvious to those not besotted with Trump is that he was in a rocketing mental decline 2024 and that he was surrounded by weirdos and extremist. That wasn't as obvious to others.
But it's true. The fringe hard right of Protestant Evangelicalism, which many other Christians find to be unsettling at best saw, and still see, Trump as a way to bring about a new Israel in the form of the United States. National Conservatives, a totally different group, saw Trump as a useful idiot whose laziness would allow them to remodel the globe on the 19th Century lines they adhore while bring about an cultural reform that would make Franco proud. People with fringe economic theories saw the same silly putty mind of Trump being something they could use to implement their radical economic theories.
But most people who voted for Trump didn't hold most of the more odd views associated with his administration. They didn't read Project 2025, didn't have time to read it, and didn't have the interest to read it.
So, most people who voted for Trump wanted him to stop illegal immigration and send the illegal migrants home, to stop the evolving trend of weird gender theory (which was very much there), and to get out and stay out of foreign wars. Quite a few, but not all, thought if that meant making the country more "white",more "protestant", and more protectionist, a bit, that was okay, as long as that didn't really mean they had to do anything themselves. And an overwhelming majority of them really didn't back any particular aspect of conservatism, let alone far right conservatism, whatsoever.
Populism, it must be remembered, is just as much of a left wing thing as a right wing one.
People don't like to admit that they made a mistake. They'll admit it, but only reluctantly. And this is all the more the case now due to the internet, which has made people's declaration of support so much easier to recollect.
But something has happened.
I think that the trade war with Canada was the last straw.
Literally nobody but the willfully deluded believes that launching a trade war with Canada made any sense whatsoever. All of the excuses for it were complete bunk. Even the scaled dairy tariffs that some like to cite to have never come into effect as they require such a massive amount of Canadian imports of American dairy to take effect. Canada has been our friend and neighbor for over a century.
Donald Trump likes to claim to be a master negotiator but in reality he's just an arrogant asshole bully. A lot of other nations have managed to deflect his tariffs one way or another without launching a trade war with the US as they're counting on Americans coming to our senses, although they are moving on. Canadians, however, are proud and their tired of putting up with the arrogance that Americans show around the world. We aren't the most advanced nation in the world, nor the freest. Everyone but we know that, and the Canadians, who live next door, very much know it.
Canada has a history of being willing to endure for its own aims and has defeated the US in wars twice. It had enough.
Americans, for their part, have a history of abandoning wars they were not keen on at the onset. New England nearly left the union during the War of 1812 and it refused to stop trading with the United Kingdom during the war. New England, again, basically chose not to participate in the Mexican War, which became, up until the current war, the most unpopular war in American history. Americans were never hugely convinced that we needed to be in Vietnam and when the things got really tough, we left.
The President of the United States insulting Canada is frankly shocking to most Americans. It's almost impossible to find anyone who supports it. A lot of rank and file Americans are open about being shocked, many hoping that Canadians do not end up hating Americans because of it (the ship has sailed on that, they do). And this followed hard on the heels of the administration repeatedly lying about the war in Iran, which Americans never supported either.
We're now seeing an American population that finds itself being hated by its closest neighbor, which many American adore, while fighting a war against a country that many suspect is a proxy war for another country, while the Chief Executive supports the brutal rape of another country by a vile dictator, while we steal another country's resources. At home prices are going up on everything while he has the unmitigated gall so suggest that doesn't matter.
In the recent primary election here, for the first time, even the hard right Wyoming Freedom Caucus had people who were angry with Trump. As Trump's intellect is stunted, he's a fan of data centers which many people in rural communities are not, and that's angering people here and in other rural areas. He's taken a sharp stick and poked agriculture in the eye, and ranchers are actually complaining about it.
The trade war with Canada will make this infinitely worse.
When the price of toilet paper goes up, and it's going to go up, people aren't going to metaphorically take it sitting down, even if they physically will have to.
Trump's support in Wyoming is at 54%. Down from 75%. We're now close to having a majority of Wyomingites that don't support him.
Cowboy Joe Six Pack isn't going to be thrilled about any of this. Paying $6.00 for diesel in a truck that will go up in price 10% in order to order an Argentinian Big Mac.
And, this winter, wait until Joe learns where these are made:
Not so much.
I think things have shifted.
Footnotes:
*Apparently, he actually didn't say that.
Dear Bess:
It is a quarter of six Monday morning. I spent all of yesterday here at the desk and saw only Clifford just before lunch. He wouldn't stay for it because he said he must have one meal on one Sunday with his wife who is in town.
Twas nice to talk to you but I'm sorry I called so early. Did my baby ever get up? Hope your weather isn't so warm as ours. We have summer time back.
I slept well but hot, and some mosquitoes bit my hands and face. Night before last I went to bed at nine o'clock after shutting all my doors. At four o'clock I was awakened by three distinct knocks on my bedroom door. I jumped up and put on my bathrobe, opened the door, and no one there. Went out and looked up and down the hall, looked into your room and Margie's. Still no one. Went back to bed after locking the doors and there were footsteps in your room whose door I'd left open. Jumped and looked and no one there! The damned place is haunted sure as shootin'. Secret service said not even a watchman was up here at that hour.
You and Margie had better come back and protect me before some of these ghosts carry me off. Vivian called last night. He's at the Statler and will have breakfast with me this morning. Hope everybody is well.
Lots and lots of love, Harry
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President McKinley rallied and doctors were cautiously optimistic he would recover.
Vice President Theodore Roosevelt, acting on the news, departed for the Adirondacks to go hiking.
In all continental commissions and other instruments, where the words ‘United Colonies’ have been used, the style be altered to ‘United States".
August 26, 2026
King Donny sent the fearsome Scott Bessent out to cause the Iranians to quiver in their boots, announcing that the US would inflict an "Economic D-Day" on Iran.
Except the US is going to exempt China, meaning that Operation Economic Outcast was stillborn from the very beginning.
Midweek Update#25: Sanctions Without China Are A Sign Of Defeat
So, It Turns Out That The US Is Winning!; A Story Illustrating Why This Pentagon Cannot Be Trusted
The US is moving its ambassadors back to the Middle East, however, which suggests it either naively thinks this will work, or that it's just going to give up.
Meanwhile:
Pentagon reveals hundreds of new Iran war casualties
This post, by the way, is the first one that I've ever had Bessent's name as a label, which surprises me. He's been mentioned before, but I've never put in a label.
One thing I've thought about doing is posting how he's sort of uniquely a symbol of hypocrisy in the Trump Administration, or maybe in MAGA. MAGA proclaims loudly that it's for "Christian" values by which it means far right Evangelical values.
Christianity pretty clearly holds that homosexual sex is a mortal sin. St. Paul was blunt about it. And yet Bessent is a homosexual in a homosexual union in which two children are being raised. Most actual Christians of any type would question this, and if Evangelical Christians are to be believed, they find it completely abhorrent.
But then, by the same token, having an alleged president who is a serial polygamist, a special envoy for the Shield of the Americas, whatever that is, who seemed to be having an affair while in her earlier role and whose husband was wearing giant fake boobs in internet photos, etc. etc., is pretty odd too.
Indeed, it's impossible to reconcile.
Mind you, I'm not saying that a homosexual, including one who is in a homosexual union, cannot be an effective Secretary of the Treasury. I'm saying you can't have an implied policy that everyone who isn't, white, straight, and sympathetic to far right Evangelicalism isn't a real American and still have a homosexual as one of your primary cabinet members and really mean any of that.
Making it all the more odd, Bessent is one of those cabinet members who has in recent months been dragged out to try to explain away whatever brain fart the Trump has uttered.
That feature of this administration has been there all along. Whereas for a transportation issue you might, in normal times, get a Transportation official, in this administration you might very well end up getting the Chief Chef of the White House to address it. And people appear and then disappear in that role pretty rapidly. Chris Wright, the Secretary of Energy, regularly was being hauled out to address the Press on all sorts of things for awhile, right up until he said that Biden was validly elected to the Oval Office.
Goodbye Chris.
Anyhow, there's something extra weird about Bessent, who always seems extremely nervous, being hauled out to address the Press on the war while we have Pete "High T" Hegseth in charge of the "War Department". Hegseth definitely fits into the far right Evangelical mold and is loud about it, while also being loud about the services being for manly men.
Well, anyhow. So much for Operation Economic Outcast.
August 31, 2026
Trump just shot some missiles at Iran and nobody cared
September 1, 2026
Iran, which you will recall supposedly lost the war, numerous times, hit Jordan with missiles within the last couple of days.
Only somewhat related, Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who is close to J. D. Vance, submitted his resignation. It is well known that he does not get along with Hegseth.
September 8, 2026
Iran, which we are repeatedly assured is on the edge of complete collapse, is imposing a restricted zone in the Strati of Hormuz.
September 9, 2026
Houthis attacked four Saudi Arabian cities and their oil installations yesterday opening a new theater in the war.
The US hit Iranian tankers.
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You know the drill.
Republicans will claim he's "trolling". MAGA will say "watch the libs, har, har, har, pass me my twelfth Bud. . . " Mike Johnson will claim he was too busy to notice. John Barrasso will look like he's badly constipated.
The Trump will do it.
J. D. Vance will claim it's a good idea, while going back to spruce up his resume for his inevitable Starbucks job application.
Seriously, he's either completely insane, or crying out for intervention.
This is not normal. Trump is not normal. He's not alright.
September 8, 2026
And then there's this: https://x.com/Amy_Siskind/status/2097119661884162247/video/1
Yesterday he appeared to be lecturing a Marine Corps helicopter pilot shortly after Marine Corps One landed and omitted saluting the guards, which has become an unfortunate tradition.
Part of Labor Day he devoted to a deranged series of tweets.
He's insane and the Republican Party just won't do anything about it. It's up to the voters, but even at that we'll be facing two more years of untold destruction due to GOP cowardice.
cont:
The government of Iceland has summoned the US ambassador to the country for Donald Trump's having posted an image yesterday showing the island nation as a U.S. possession. Mexico, Canada and Greenland were included in the same crazy image.
cont:
I just thank my people. I was building a big building in New York and I took the whole crew down there right after this happened and they had no hesitation. Everybody went down with me. We went down as a big group of people ... we thought it was coming down on top of us ... two fireman lifted me up and started running with me.
Two fireman, big strong guys, they grabbed me under the arms -- 'got to get our of here!' -- and they literally lifted me up, and they started running with me.
Donald Trump about 9/11. It's a complete lie.
cont:
And later today:
The Failing New York Magazine wrote a story that I wasn’t down at the World Trade Center after the Tragedy of September 11th, because nobody saw me there. Well, I don’t think I would be the first thing on anyone’s mind but, I was there, obviously not on the same day as the collapse, but shortly thereafter…
The Fake News doesn’t want to listen, even when they know their story is false. That’s why their approval ratings are at an All Time LOW, but mine are VERY HIGH!
On another September 11th front, Maggot Hagerman continues to say that I did not go to the New York World Trade Center event, but the Pentagon instead, because they wouldn’t let me speak in New York. Maggot knows that this is a lie!
This is actually a fairly big event as Trump was caught in a lie so large that he was forced to attempt to step away from it. He wasn't there, and was called on it, and admitted he wasn't there.
He's a liar whose occupation of the White House dishonors the country.
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Autarky is the economic concept of producing everything a nation consumes within its own borders. It's been tried numerous times, and inevitably leads at best to high prices and deprivation. At worst, it results in warfare.
Autarky was the official economic model of the Nazi Party after German economist Hjalmar Schacht joined the party in 1926 and after Gregor Strasser was ousted from party influence.* Nazi Germany provides a perfect example of how it doesn't work. Germany was a major industrial power leading up to, during and after World War Two (it still is), but it could never produce enough of anything for its own economy, even in peacetime. Moreover, it didn't have the raw materials to supply all it did produce. It imported 20% of its food supply in the early 1930s, and by the late 1930s the Nazis had only managed to boost that to 83%.
The solution was simple.
What the Germans did have, they could just seize from neighboring countries through war, and then either kill off the native population or subjugate it. That's exactly what it attempted to do. It pursued that murderously in Poland and the Soviet Union, and through vassal states in the form of France, Romania and Spain. Where that proved to be impossible. . . for the time being, it used bullying and threats, such as in regard to Sweden.
Even at that, it was never able to do it.
That seems to be to some extent what Donald Trump is advocating right now.
If we were playing hardball, all we'd do is say we're going to do no trading with Canada. If we did no trading with Canada would save $90 billion.
We could do tremendous good for ourselves by just not trading with countries.. We lose with Mexico $195 billion a year. They have nothing that we have to have, I mean. Hot tamales, tomatoes, a couple of things
Trump seems to believe that by closing the economic border with Canada and Mexico, and everyone else, unless they essentially become vassal states, the US can simply go it alone and not be harmed. Where it's obvious that won't work, we'll force acquisition, as we have now done in Venezuela and keep threatening to do with Greenland.
This is immoral, and stupid.
You'd think that a guy who went to Wharton would have a basic grasp of economics. Open economic borders, truly open economic borders, make countries rich, not poor. That doesn't mean that there's never a place for tariffs, including for protectionism, but it's generally a bad idea.
What makes for more sense is for the United States, Mexico, and Canada, to have a seamless economy with no tariffs at all. The US and Canada had a nearly duty free relationship prior to Trump, save for the infamous very high ones on dairy, poultry, and egg products. Those latter tariffs were absurd, but the US also has absurd tariffs in the agricultural sector. The US relationship with Mexico is, right now, duty free.
An absolute lack of tariffs is how it should be between the three major North American economies. Only an an economic ignoramus would disrupt that.
And only an immoral person would advocate taking the oil of another nation that is providing it under the gun. The US has been an oil addict for a century, but was showing signs of getting off the stuff. Trump, with his "it's always the 1950s" mindset can't seem to get out of that.
Trump should really know better. Wharton has a reputation as one of the best, maybe the best, business school in the country. He owes us an explanation, which he seems to be incapable of articulating, for his idiotic economic views. Wharton, and I'm serious about this, does as well. I know one Wharton graduate personally, and he is brilliant. But the example of Donald Trump is to weird to explain. For that matter, the example of Wyoming's Chuck Gray, who is an absolute Trump sycophant, is as well.
We need a combination of supreme moral sensitivity and economic knowledge. Economically ignorant moralism is as objectionable as morally callous economism. Ethics and economics are two equally difficult subjects, and while the former needs discerning and expert reason, the latter cannot do without humane values.
Wilhelm Röpke, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market
September 8, 2026
Retaliatory Canadian tariffs took place today with duties ranging from 15% to 50% across hundreds of U.S. products worth a total CA$27.6 billion, including dairy, agricultural equipment, paper, household appliances and electronics.
This will hurt Canadian consumer through increased cost to them, and American producers due to decreased demand.
Cont:
And as this wasn't enough, 5he United States is banning the import of some dairy products motorcycles and most alcoholic beverages from Canada.
This is rank stupidity. Peter Navarro ought to be sent to kindergarten and Wharton declared a clown college.
So, if you can, go out and buy a Can Am motorcycle and some Crown Royal.
Footnotes
*Strasser was permanently ousted from influence in the Night of the Long Knives.
Schacht is interesting in that he was never a Nazi himself and was involved in prewar anti Nazi plots. He served in the German government nonetheless.
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