Thursday, October 1, 2026

Blog List updating perfectly now, was Blog Lists Not Updating.

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Lists Not Updating.: It started just about a week ago.  Apparently it's a widespread problem that Blogger, run by Google, is having and there is, so far, no ...

Lots of bloggers were experiencing it.  People complained where they could.  It seems to have cleared up.

 


CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 160th Edition. On being a worthless sycophant

Lummis Blocks Dem’s Push In Senate To Condemn Taxpayer-Funded Pro-Trump Ads


Lummis blocks Senate resolution criticizing Trump’s taxpayer-funded TV ads


For goodness sakes, Lummis is retiring.  She doesn't even have to do this, and she knows it's wrong.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 1, 1946. Crime, Punishment, and World War Two.

Sentences were handed down from the major Nuremberg Trial with verdicts having been rendered the previous day.  Twelve convicted were sentenced to death, those being Hermann Göring, Martin Bormann, who was sentenced in absentia and in fact already dead, Joachim von Ribbentrop, Wilhelm Keitel, Ernst Kaltenbrunner,  Alfred Rosenberg, Hans Frank,Wilhelm Frick, Julius Streicher, Fritz Sauckel, Alfred Jodl, Arthur Seyss-Inquart

All told, 19 people were convicted. Three were found innocent, those being Hjalmar Schacht, Franz von Papen, and Hans Fritzsche.

Mensa was founded.

Kim II Sung University was founded, named in accordance with the despicable strong man trait of naming things after yourself while you are alive. . . kind of like somebody else we could name.

Violence in downtown Denver.


Last edition:

Saturday, September 28, 1946. "I believe the outlawing of the atom bomb is the outlawing of wars... I think the time has come when humanity is intelligent enough to do away with war."

Sunday, October 1, 1911. The 1911 Mexican Election.

General elections were held in Mexico.  Francisco I. Madero was elected President by a landslide.

Published in the Baltimore Sun on this day:



Last edition:

Saturday, September 30, 1911. The Virginian opens.

    Tuesday, October 1, 1901. My paternal grandfather born.

    My paternal grandfather was born in Iowa, part of a large Westphalian American family that had immigrated to the U.S. in the 1840s.  He was one of 8 children and was their fourth child.

    He went to work in 1912 in San Francisco, returning home to Iowa sometime after that, and then moving to Denver where he entered the meatpacking industry, his occupation for the rest of his life.  He died in 1949.

    Rudyard Kipling's novel Kim was published in book form.

    Last edition:

    Saturday, September 28, 1901. Battle of Balangiga.

    The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.

    If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

    Herbert Stein.

    September 23, 2026

    Something is actually going on in the GOP for the first time since the Dixiecrat MAGA insurgency took control of the party and made it a populist party.

    Bit and pieces of the signs are everywhere, all of a sudden.  Stein's Law has arrived.

    GOP candidates are in trouble all over the country and now they're starting to dump Trump.  A good example of this is Congressman Ashley Hinson, who is trying to do the same thing that Harriet Hageman is trying to do, which is to move into a retiring Senator's spot.  She's in real trouble in that effort and recent polls indicate that she's behind. The Republican seat appears slated to go to a Democrat.  The GOP sent out John Barrasso to stump for her, an odd choice as Barrasso isn't inspiring on his alleged home turf, but the thought must have been that the Senate Whip could show how Hinson winning would help the Dear Leader.

    Well, that message didn't seem to take. So Hinson started to bolt.  From her Facebook.

    Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices. 

    That includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, unleashing E-15 everywhere we can, reinstating the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit, and creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs. 

    While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so that Iowans don’t suffer from crumbling roads and bridges while relief comes our way now. These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.

    I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.

    She otherwise demanded that the war against Iran be stopped.

    Hinson had voted against the War Powers Resolution every time it's been voted on in the House, and did so just a week prior, so she's voted to keep the war rolling.  Now she wants it over.  Fuel prices are the reason why.

    Closer to home, there are all of a sudden all sorts of die-hard right wingers who are criticizing Trump.  Whether that translates over to opposing Trump lover Chuck Gray and Trump supported Harriet Hageman is another thing, but there's definitely stirring in the ranks.

    Indeed, Cowboy State Daily carpetbagging columnist Dave Simpson went into a "boo hoo' fit about the whole thing, wondering if the imaginary Sweet Home Alabama Wyoming he believes to have existed has gone "wobbly".

    Go home Dave.  You drank too much WFC Kool aide.

    Elsewhere, Wyoming teachers are organizing against the attempt to bankrupt the state:

    Teachers, hospital leaders launch $1M campaign to fight property tax ballot measure

    And it's been noted that Wyomingites are voting their interests:
    Beyond that, the revolt is getting large enough that as early as it is, we're now seeing the non Trump GOP start to reemerge from the bunkers for the 2028 races, with Chris Christie having basically indicated that he's running.

    Elections are not over, until their over, but it is clear that the GOP, and for that matter Trump, have no idea on how to hold on to the Senate, let alone the House.  Doubling down on all the old tired lines (the Red Chinese are coming to have babies, date your daughters, steal your lunch) isn't working.  The MAGA base was always the demographic that was most vulnerable to an economic downturn and now it's suffering.  Agriculture, a Republican base, can't deal with the high fuel and fertilizer prices.  Trucking can't deal with the high prices either.  Regular people don't like the high prices at the grocery store and nobody likes the high fuel prices in the West.

    This can't and won't be fixed by the election. The war against Iran won't be over and fuel prices will be high unless a ban on exports tanks the price of diesel, which it likely won't.

    It took a lot, but people seem to be waking up to being lied to.  Moreover, as that happens, Trump gets weirder and weirder by the day.

    One place that appears now almost inevitable to go to the Democrats is Texas, where Texas Democratic Senate James Talarico has seen a 28-point swing in vote share against Ken Paxton.  

    Cont:

    Fresh from getting its head handed to it in the primary, where its endorsements didn't pan out for the most part, the Dixiecrat controlled central committee of the Wyoming Republican Party has endorsed the property tax cut bill that would gut local governments like fish.
    Basically, the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus hates the Gubbement and figures that stuff like education and the like can be handled by Ella Mae back at home.


    September 24, 2026


    September 25, 2026

    Dixiecrats are moving over to their rightful home:

    Rod Miller wrote an op ed on this and I've been meaning to post on it, so I'll just comment here.  Bextel moving over to the Constitution Party, delusional though she is, is a good thing if it causes other Dixiecrats of the WFC to follow her, and they should.  Here, a prominent Hot Springs politician has done just that.  

    The Constitution Party, which believes in a double secret constitution written in crayon and visible only through secret decoder glasses may pull over 10% in the election, which would make it a good place for people from the WFC to pack up their gray kepis and go and be "real".  As is actually they, not traditional Wyoming Republicans, who are the aberration, they'd be doing themselves a favor, they'd have more voice in the CP, but the Republican Party and the State one as well.  It'd allow the GOP to shake off the chains of the Confederacy which the WFC is attempting to bind it with.

    In this environment, it might be noted, it's amazing that the Democrats can't get more traction than they are, but they aren't.  Byrd still stands a good chance, but he's about the only one outside of the very few Democrats holding seats in the legislature.

    September 29, 2026

    From here on out in the election we're going to see Bat Shit Crazy on full display nearly every day.

    Apparently not realizing that the election is a referendum on Donald Trump, a couple weeks ago Trump urged votes to imagine he's on the ballot.

    The Republican problem is that voters are doing just that.

    If people think back to the 2024 Presidential Election, most voters were never very keen on Trump. The most commonly expressed opinion going into the election was that voters disliked both candidates.  The Democrats screwed themselves by running Biden, which was simply insane.  Republican voters in the primary were in part MAGA true believes, but that misses the point that a lot of Republicans have left the party.  When Biden dropped out, way too late, the Democrats did the typical Democratic thing and killed themselves by nominating a Kamala Harris, about the most irritating candidate they could have found.

    2024 is in the rear view mirror of course, but what's been missed in the Trumpian Reign of Terror is that most people went into 2025 disliking Donald Trump and it's gone downhill from there, something made worse by the fact that this administration is made up of the cynical advantageous and those with some agenda, often a deluded one.

    With that mix, Trump has had a free hand in acting like a mad king, and he's made the most of it.  People with an agenda, moreover, are fully exercising their one and only chance to try to pull it off.  

    Trump's pretty clearly aware of this, in spite of his addled state.  It explains the constant effort to build monuments to himself.  In spite of what some in the far right Evangelical camp believe, there's pretty good reason to doubt Trump's belief in an afterlife.  He certainly hasn't lived like he believes in one.  So he's trying to make sure we remember him as a great man in terms of architecture and conquest.

    It's all going to fail.

    Trump doesn't seem to be able to grasp that people do not love him.  He's a narcissist who is profoundly in love with himself.  The worst, therefore, nightmare of his life is unfolding.  A lot of motivated people who range from horrified to absolute contempt are going to boot the GOP out of the House, and now it looks like the Senate, and for the very reasons that Trump has urged us to do.  They're voting on him, as the GOP has become a sycophantic personality cult.  

    People don't love him.

    From now until the election Trump will pull out all the stops to try to keep the result he fears from happening. Anything he can legally get away with he will try.   It'll be a long month until the election.

    On not loving Trump, it's a shame Wyomingites don't have a better option to contest Chuck Gray.

    Gray has made a career out of loving Trump more than Trump loves Trump. That's about all he has going for him.  We're about to send somebody completely unqualified to do anything for the State to Congress.  Would that somebody other than Johnson and Kinney were running. Neither stand a chance, and they don't really deserve to. 

    If none of the above were an option in that race, that'd be the one that would win.

    Speaking of Gray, Gray has been showing up at UW football games recently and having pictures taken with students.

    It's pathetic.

    September 30, 2026

    Wyoming Secretary of State and GOP candidate for Congress Chuck Gray emerged from hiding from debate requests, while he's not going to UW football games to be photographed with students, to congratulate the Supreme Court for temporarily upholding 

    October 1, 2026

    The backers of a data center in Natrona County invited Republican candidates for the County Commission to tour the site and omitted the Democratic candidates.

    The GOP candidates are Lisa Jamieson (Democrat), Matt Keating (Republican), Ray Pacheco (Republican), Candace Machado (Democrat) and Dallas Laird (Republican).

    We haven't addressed this race much yet, but Laird is a 1,000,000 years old and needs to go.  Keating was a somewhat controversial commissioner and then a somewhat controversial assessor.  He's been battling cancer.  Pacheco is a City of Casper councilman.  Machado was a controversial mayor of Evansville.

    Appendix


    Last edition:


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    Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 8. Donald Trump, China's (and Russia's) greatest ally 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.

    Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.

    Dietrich Bonhoeffer

    July 26, 2026

    China v. Taiwan

    The Houthis hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia yesterday.

    News reports hold that the administration has put on hold an escalation of the war due to a shortage of air defense munitions.  Savvy analysts, including yours truly, have been warning about that occurring for months, and not it's here.

    So, in keeping with that, a prediction.

    This is also likely a moment that Putin and Xi have been waiting for as well.  Our weapons stockpile has been built up over years, and now we've wasted it on a war fought for Israel and Trump's vanity.  Both Putin and Xi know that the next President, assuming at Trump 2028 coup to be unsuccessful, and assuming that we don't have another President before 2028, is much less likely to be a complete patsy and geopolitical dimwit.  

    For Russia, that means Russia needs to fight on in hopes it can win before the next administration comes on.  For Xi, that means the time to invade Taiwan is. . . now.

    July 29, 2026

    Russo Ukrainian War

    The U.S. Senate advanced Russian energy sanctions legislation Tuesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the Capitol. The vote was seen as a tribute to the bill’s author, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, on the day of his funeral, which was widely attended by politicos. 

    Trump fell asleep during it as J. D. Vance seemed oblivious to the dozing octogenarian and Bessent looked nervous about it, but then he always looks nervous.

    July 31, 2026

    Israeli Hamas War

    The Bored of Peas has supposedly worked out a peace plan in Gaza.  Sober analysts a 4th Grade level have severe doubts about it.

    August 1, 2026

    Russo Ukrainian War

    Now Trump is backtracking and saying the US won't license Patriot missile production to Ukraine.

    August 2, 2026

    Russo Ukrainian War

    Ukraine has run out of ballistic missile interceptors.  This comes at the same time that the US supply is seriously depleted due to Donald Trump's illegal moronic war against Iran.

    King Donny should free up what remains of the US supply and give them to Ukraine, and start emergency production for the US.  As for Iran, we can solve that problem simply by pulling out.  Better yet, pulling out, putting every senior commander who agreed to fight in a clearly illegal war on trial, and impeaching Donald Trump.

    Crisis in Ceuta

    Not a war but requiring Spanish military deployment, a mass flood of immigrants crashed into the Spanish North African city of Ceuta.

    About 50,000 North African immigrants stormed the city, leading to dramatic news footage and MAGA "see, it could happen here" claims.  Missed in the story is that 48,000 of them returned to Morocco within 48 hours.

    A bigger question may be why Spain retains a city that you would figure should be part of Morocco, but it does.

    Italy defensively suspended the EU's border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain.

    August 10, 2026

    Israel v. Hamas.

    Israel had rejected the "Board of Peace" peace plan, refusing to enter into a peace deal with Hamas until it is definitely disarmed.

    Another blow to King Donny.

    August 17, 2026

    Russo Ukrainian War

    Both sides exchanged heavy missile and drone attacks yesterday.  A NATO jet on patrol shot down a drone that had strayed into Romania.  

    August 18, 2026

    Russo Ukrainian War

    Robert Shaheiev, 49, formerly of the Ukrainian Navy who defected to Russia early in the war died in an explosion in Sevastopol.

    Whether he was targeted or not, Ukrainian operatives have proven effective at hunting down figures in the Russian military that they find particularly responsible for various matters.  Shaheiev defected with a submarine.

    Korean War

    Donald Trump has signaled that the US is going to scale back it's participation in joint exercises with the South Korean Army.

    What's going on here is terribly unclear.  The US has maintained troops in the ROK since the 1945 and the threat of North Korean invasion is very real.  

    I should note that this isn't entirely unprecedented.  Jimmy Carter actually campaigned on the idea in 1976 and tried to implement a phased withdrawal, which was abandoned over conservative and military objections.  Since the 1980s, military support of South Korea has been very strong.

    Trumps move comes at a time when the US is losing an illegal war with Iran and is having to pull naval assets out of the Pacific.  It also comes at a point at which the longtime Red Chinese goal of forcibly reunited Taiwan with the mainland is at its highest point. Combined with that, Trump's administration is packed with National Conservatives who have a sort of Neo Nineteenth Century view of where the U.S.'s foreign policy should be focused.

    Given that, Trump's decision could be the result of his listening to National Conservatives, or it could be because or logistical situation is much worse than admitted.

    It could also be because South Korea refused to participate in the illegal war, like every other nation on earth did.  Trump has not taken that well.  Nobody seems to be pointing out that South Korea did participate in the Vietnam War, which Trump did not.  Trump himself, at any rate, referenced South Korea's lack of willingness to get into the losing war with Iran.

    Because of Trump's other actions, however, there's widespread commentary about whether Trump is a Russian asset and this is influencing him on the world stage.  As radical as that sounds, there are reason to raise this question.  Certainly no other President has hurt US interest, and just the US in general, more than Trump, and he's a fanboy of Putin.

    We've noted it elsewhere, but we've been worried about a Chinese strike on Taiwan in the near future.  The combination of the failed Iran War and Trump's other actions make that inevitable . The question is whether that will come this Fall, or next Spring.

    September 4, 2026

    Russo Ukrainian War

    In an attack Ukraine is an intentional Russian signal to the United States, Russia hit a Coca Cola plant in a drone strike.

    Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has killed a House vote on Lindsey Graham’s Russia sanctions bill which passed the Senate in July, stating “We have to build consensus around that final product".

    Oh, um, . . . not hat doesn't look a little weird. . . .  and doesn't raise any questions, um, like  Дональд Трамп — агент России?

    What is it with this administration and Russia?  Why is Дональд Трамп a Russian asset?  Just stupidity and a like for flashy gold things?

    September 20, 2026

    Russo Ukrainian War

    Ukraine launched a massive drone raid on targets in the Moscow region.

    September 22, 2026

    Pakistan v. Afghanistan

    Pakistan conducted air raids into Afghanistan yesterday.

    October 1, 2026

    US in Iraq

    The U.S. is now completely out of Iraq.

    Related threads:

    King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.

    Last edition:

    King Donald's War, Part 10. "If any question why we died, Tell them, because our fathers lied." Donald Trump, the killer edition.Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

    Wednesday, September 30, 2026

    CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 159th Edition. On being a dirtbag and "Unites States".

     


    Republican Senator Eric Schmitt accuses Jack Smith of being a "dirtbag" and accuses him of being where he wasn't, complete with blown-up text messages.

    I'm not a sports fan, and apparently Schmitt isn't either, as he confused the teams.  Amy Klobuchar, whose father was a sports writer hands Schmitt his head.

    Schmitt has not apologized.  Failing to apologize under these circumstances would make Schmitt a Dirtbag who henceforth should be known as Eric "Dirtbag" Schmitt, the Dirtbag from Wisconsin who is a dirtbag.

    Apologize Schmitt.

    Schmitt was the AG for Wisconsin where he must have excelled in such stunning repertoire in the courtroom.  I'm amazed that some courtroom drama hasn't used "oh yeah!, well you're a dirtbag!"

    In other news, in King Donny's royal decree attempting to rename Artificial Intelligence "Super Intelligence", as he has the vocabulary of a 5th grader, United States is misspelled.

    Last edition:

    CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 158th Edition. How the Internet Emphases the Absurd and Marginal and Make it seem Significant. Pastor Brian Sauvé

    Saturday, September 30, 1911. The Virginian opens.

    Today In Wyoming's History: September 30: 1911. The Virginian Hotel opened in Medicine Bow.

    It's named after the central character in Owen Wister's classic Western novel written in 1902.

    The Virginian, Medince Bow, Wyoming.



    Medicine Bow Union Pacific Station, Medicine Bow Wyoming


    This a classically styled small town railroad station, located in Medicine Bow, Wyoming.  It's now a museum.





    View with the Virginian Hotel just in the background, showing the typical arrangement between train stations in hotels in the days when long distance transportation was generally by rail.

    The concrete dam maintained by Bayless Pulp and Paper Mill outside of Austin Pennsylvanian burst killing 78 people 


    A baseball game in Madison, NJ>




    Main & Genesee Streets, Buffalo, NY, September 30, 1911.

    Last edition: