Thursday, November 12, 2026

Tuesday, November 12, 1946. Song of the South. Winters of the 1940s.

Disney released Song of the South, the first production to combine animation with live action.


The cartoon is considered a masterpiece of animation, and is controversial for being racist.  It's never been released in a home format.

When I was a kid, Disney used to run it in a compressed form, or perhaps snippet form, on its Sunday evening television program.  We learned the song Zip-a-Dee-Doo-Dah in school.

Regionally, the Rocky Mountain West was getting pummeled by a major snow storm.



It's often noted in certain circles, but not generally discussed, that the weather of the 1940s in its entirety was odd and severe.  1940-1942 featured an event called the 1940-42 Global Anomaly which featured a strong, prolonged El Niño and two of the coldest European winters of the 20th century, but unusually warm temperatures in Alaska and the Arctic.  The War Winters of the 1940s were very bitter, with the UK experiencing its worst winter in 1940 since 1895.  Bitter weather was often a feature of horrific field conditions in Europe, with for example the entire Battle of the Bulge being notoriously cold and snowy.  The Thames and Berlin Canals froze in 1940.  1940 in the US saw the horrific 1940 Armistice Day Blizzard.  The Winter of 1946-1947 was catastrophically cold and snowy in the United Kingdom and Ireland.  The Winter of 1947 would be catastrophically severe in the American West.

When these are considered they're sometimes considered as singular localized events, but they are not, as the War Winters and the 40-42 Anamonly demonstrate. Some global weather phenomenon was going on globally, just has the warm weather of the 1930s had been.  In today's News item, we can see that what was going on in the UK and would go on in the West in 1947, was already expressing itself in the Rocky Mountain West, and indeed it had been since at least 1940.  The Winter of 1947 is regarded as a climatic shift resulting from Global Warming, which can cause weather to not only be warmer, but more severe.

The causes of climatic shifts were already being debated by the 1930s, but in general scientific consensus, in spite of what climate mythologist like to suggest, by the mid 20th Century it was understood that human beings were effecting the climate and scientists were urging action and caution by that time.  As that was ignored, it's now the point at which very pronounced action needs to take place, something that is continually hindered as the American Republican Party is an enemy of science.

The News ran a radio log for radio programming, just like a lot of newspapers currently run a television log.


The Exchange National Bank of Chicago opened the country’s first drive-in banking service. The facility had ten drive up tellers, which is quite a lot.

Last edition:

Monday, November 11, 1946. Proclamation 2710.

Thursday, November 12, 1936. The Bay Bridge Opens.

Union workers outside the Weighers' and Warehousemen's Union headquarters, workers celebrating the 1936 election.  Photo by the great Dorothea Lange.  This photo is given this date, but my guess is that it might be from November 11. Great example of actual 1930s clothing.

The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge opened.

Workers at General Motors went on strike.

Winston Churchill delivered a speech in Parliament attacking Prime Minister Baldwin government for its slow response to German rearmament.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 11, 1936. Proclamation 2207.

Sunday, November 12, 1876. Moonlight Graham and Twilight Ed born.

On this day, Archibald "Moonlight" Graham was born.  

I've written about him before.

But all defeats are relevant only internally, really.  So if they matter, it's the individual who determines that.

The movie Field Of Dreams is all about such defeats.   The Black Sox and Shoeless Joe Jackson, etc.  In the film, the protagonist Ray Kinsella at one points takes an author, who himself has suffered personal defeats, to a baseball game and receives the message that he's to go find Archibald "Moonlight" Graham.  Probably most of the viewers of the film don't realize that Graham was in fact a real character, and just like the character in the movie, he appeared in a single major league game before leaving the game, albeit the next year in reality, going on to practice medicine in Chisholm, Minnesota.  The actual Graham had completed his medical degree the same year as his single major league appearance.  As a practicing physician, he worked to provide free glasses for the children of Iron Range miners.  He was, therefore, much like the character that is portrayed in the film, first located by Kinsella in Chisholm in a time travelling night in 1972 (after the real Graham's death), where he informs Kinsella that he can't travel to the field due to his duties of a doctor. Kinsella replies that it would "kill some men" to be so close to their dream and not touch it, to which Graham replies that it would be a tragedy if he had only been a doctor for one day, rather than only have been a baseball player for a day.

On the same day, Ed "Twilight Ed" Killian was born.  The great left handed pitcher would play from 1903 to 1910, ending his career in the Detroit Tigers.


He died in 1928 in Detroit of cancer at age 51.  Married twice, and widowed once, he had no children.

Marshalling was occuring at Ft. Fetterman for a winter campaign against the Sioux and Cheyenne.  This included the conversion of infantry at the post to mounted infantry, mounted on quartermasters' mules.

Related threads:

Sunday, not Monday, is the commencement of the week, and there was nothing particularly unusual about Sunday except. . .


Last edition:

Friday, November 10, 1876. Centennial Exposition closes.

2026 Election Post Mortem, Part 3. Changes, accusations, resignations and developments.


November 6, 2026

We've put our two immediate 2026 Election Post Mortems, but we'll need a trailing thread as there's going to be a boatload of things coming.

One thing that already has come is new voters entered the voting scene in spades.  The tyranny of the Boomers at the polls has ended.  The youngest voters in this election were born in 2007 and they are pissed off.  They don't admire their great grandparents in the Boomer generation (or in many cases, their great great grandparents) and they don't think the Boomers saved the world for civilization. They think the Boomers destroyed things for them.

They have good reason to think that. 

For that reason, renewed dire warnings from politicians like Ron Johnson that "the Commies" are coming don't mean anything to them. Socialism?  They aren't afraid of it.

For that reason, look for an early effort to bring in Medicaid for all.  The Republican demographic already on Medicaid will oppose it.

The country is getting national healthcare.  If not in 2027, then in 2029.

But we're seeing the revival of conservative Democrats, which actually isn't inconsistent with what we've noted above. The incoming Democratic 120th Congress will have 22 members in the Blue Dog Caucus.  

Blue Dog Democrats, conservatives, were considered dead and buried in the pet cemetery.  The festering stench of the dying and dead GOP caused, however, a revival.  As already noted, the incoming 120th Congress has a couple of real red blooded Americans in it, so to speak.

Democratic Congressman from Montana, Sam Forstag, a smoke jumper.  By Conorhogan16 - Own work, CC0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=194696290

Our neighbor to the North, Montana, is sending a Democratic smoke jumper to Congress, whereas we're sending a man who couldn't even muster up the traditional photo on a horse propaganda.  Alaska is sending a woman who was a commercial fisherman to the Senate whereas we're sending a woman who just likes to sound like an old harpie.  The darling of the far right in the election, Becky Bextel, spent he first part of her campaign bragging about the size of her presumably imaginary testicals.

Alaska Senator, Mary Peltola.

Geez louise, we've become a bunch of candy ass wimps.

Add to that a logger who booted out Susan Collins in Maine.

Also add to that a collection of senior military officers including Eileen Laubacher, who replaced Lauren Boebert.

Eileen Laubacher

Boebert's departure, and that of Tommy Tuberville, raises the intelligence level of Congress in one fell swoop, although Tuberville was inexplicably elected Governor of Alabama, which doesn't speak very well of Alabama.

The fact of the matter is that Wyoming now has a real cadre of wimps and oddballs in D.C.  John Barrasso rose all the way to Majority Whip.  My guess his days of being useful to the GOP are over.  He won't run again, and he shouldn't.  He's as old as dirt now.  Hageman is just going to be malignant, a bit of her specialty.  Chuck, well who knows.  He probably hoped that his beloved, Donald Trump, would pick him for something.

Anyhow:

Wyoming Republicans strike defiant tone as Democratic sweep of Congress ushers in a new era

The blame game is going on in the GOP right now, which is interesting.  No singular blame has been decided on, but some Republicans are speaking the truth. Trump killed his party.  It's all Trump's fault, and that of the ideologues and sycophants surrounding him.

A couple of people surrounding him have begun to run away from him.  J. D. Vance immediately blamed the defeat on the war against Iran which he was always against. That implicitly suggest that Trump listened to dumb ass advice  and the dumb ass is Pete Hegseth.  As of this morning, it looks like Marco Rubio, who like Vance was just riding in the wagon to get through the country and hopefully into the Oval Office, is getting ready to bolt.

Senior Justice Department official Harmeet Dhillon, who led the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Attorney's Office, and oversaw investigations into universities, voter rolls and alleged violations of religious freedom, bolted.


That's interesting.  She surely has a reason to be doing so.

Rumors have it that Pete Hegseth is going to get fired.  If that's the case, it has to happen soon as once the 120th Congress is seated, no new Secretary of Defense, and that's what it will be, not Secretary of War, will be confirmed.

One thing we're seeing big time now is Donald Trump's mental decline.  As we noted yesterday:

November 5, 2026.

Donald Trump is fading fast.Frankly, he's becoming a child and is playing with his binkies.  

Yesterday he went to his sandbox, the ballroom, and babbled.  The event was putting up the last steel beam on what is admittedly a massively built structure.  The amount of steel going into this, and reinforced concrete (I'll wager it's' badly done, given the time involved) is massive. Workers signed the beam, forever memorializing their descent into fascism for all time. They'll always be remembered as fascist stooges.  Trump signed it too, thereby putting his signature on a temporary government structure in addition to pubic hair representations for Jeffrey Epstein.  

How charming.

Today he tried to make the gilded shit, which is a kind description, at the White House some sort of national memorial.

It won't work.  A stroke of the pen will erase it, just like it did Federal land designations in Utah.  

The White House designation will fail.

It's really hard for people to waste anything that's been built, and that's the challenge with the ballroom. Trump knows that. And in spite of all the soft headed Democrats who just say "rename it", no renaming will do what needs to be done.  The next administration needs to obliterate it.

And rapidly.

It needs to come down so fast that if it destroys things near it, including the White House, so be it.

And, for goodness sakes, invoke the 25th Amendment.  

We're likely to see more and more of this.  People like Paula White and Franklin Graham aside, Trump has no real concept of religion and probably figures that any immortality he can obtain has to be in stone.  He's desperate to be remembered.  He'll become more and more fixated on this.

Indeed, fwiw, I've noticed this in older people who lack a concept of the existential.  Some physical thing, or a business, becomes their "legacy".

Trump, deep down, know that his legacy is a vile one.  Everything associated with this administration, including the ballroom and the arch, if its built, and the gilded crap will be tossed out like the trash of an all night party on Epstein Island, and smell just as bad. . .a and weird.  He can't accept that.

He'll get worse.

cont:

Ted, who of course is from Texas which saw a major Democratic insurgency:

I will say to every elected Republican: We need to listen to what the voters' said, listen to their frustration, and be working to lower gas prices, food prices, interest rates. Help people succeed and provide for their families.

Ted Cruz.

Cruz showed signs of breaking away the last several months.  Now he's openly doing so.  He's also campaigning for 2028.

In Colorado, Boebert's campaign claims they are investigating "unusual voting patterns".

You have to admit that, by definition, voting for Boebert demonstrates an unusual voting pattern.  The pattern would be profound idiocy. They need to find them so they can get help, or relocate to Tommy Tuberville's house.

cont:

Over the past few days I've received an exposure to the MAGA mindset, some from people I know very well, and then one from somebody I don't.

One very well educated person I know, but who has an exceedingly narrow focus on things, is now all verklempt about socialism.  I.e., he's convinced the Democrats are going to Karl Marx up everything.

That's flat out absurd.

One of the interesting things about that sort of view is that the same people are so blind to how National Socialist, i.e., Nazi the Republican Party had become under Trump.  People are so focused on the racial evil the Nazis espoused (and MAGAs get into that territory themselves) that they don't realize that the Nazis had an economic theory the endorsed, autarky.  

The Trump regime has really combined autarky with state capitalism, economic theories that don't work, and theories associated with fascism.

Anyhow, some people apparently seriously believe that there will a Gastronom coming to your neighborhood soon. That's freakin' absurd.

Another set of people I know very well are now all concerned they need to buy gold to hedge against a Democratic caused economic collapse.  The funny thing about this is that I knew other people buying gold to hedge against a Republican caused economic collapse.  During COVID I knew people who were buying gold to hedge against a COVID caused economic collapse.

Gold's nifty.  Buy it if you want, but there's not going to be an economic collapse no matter how much people enjoy dreaming of one.

Another person talked to me in a panic after the election.  Funny thing there is that its a case of somebody assuming that I have the same political views as they do. 

I'm often amazed by that.  It's based, I think, on being a semi rural person and a Wyoming native.  That must mean, they figure, that I think the same thing they do, if we're both in Wyoming.

As an aside here, I'll note that I've been accused of TDS here before.  I don't worry much about it as Trump is demonstrably demented, and everybody know it at this point.  But where TDS may be asserted about me for sure in the ballroom.

It has to come down as soon as possible.

It's a really strong human instinct not to waste things.  That's why people save piles of crap.  It's why old people begin to hoard thing.  And it's why there are all sort of proposals now to "well, we can rename. . ."

You can rename the Trump ballroom to whatever you want, but it'll be the Trump ballroom forever.  Far better that it be a memory than an existing fascist monument.

Removing monuments is demonstrably difficult.  The aged Confederates and their children put up monuments to their racist rebellion all over the place in the 1910s, and a lot of them are still up.  Madrid decided to quietly start taking down Francoist monuments in 2016 and people who hated Franco were upset about it.  And big buildings are another thing yet.  Occasionally some old big building is the topic of removal and "Save the old big ugly building" will get rolling as a movement.

And this thing is expensive.  It'll be expensive to remove it.

Spare no expense and blow the sucker to the ground is my demand to the next President.  That's a fitting official memorial to Trump.

For that matter, and this is extreme, I'd look at filing suit against every company involved with this project.  It's illegal.  They know its illegal.  It's a largescale act of vandalism, and as they're damaging things, they should be sued.

The ballroom has really become Trump's binkie.  It's pathetic.  He stated yesterday that it will be "the best in the world".

Nobody in the US gives a rusty rat's ass about ballrooms anymore.  The MAGAs who say "we need it" have probably never been in one.  If Trump claimed that he need a giant latrine on the grounds, they'd say "we need it".

Also, fwiw, I don't think that the next administration should wait for anyone to approve taking it down.  It went up illegally, and therefore is an illegal structure.  The way demolition typically works for a large structure is such that it can be removed before anyone says anything about it.

Cont:

Josef Goebbels, um Stephen Miller, is replacing Susie Wiles as White House Chief of Staff.  Wiles position has been on the line for awhile, but this is a seriously moronic move.  Miller is potentially the only political figure on the planet hated more than Trump.

That's a signal that Trump is going to double down on delusion.

John Eisenberg, who headed the DOJ's National Security Division, and Jason Reding Quiñones, who pursued probes into the past criminal investigations of Trump, have resigned.  The DOJ is clearing out.

November 3, 2026

An absolutely laughable op ed in the Cowboy State Daily, posted on election day, but before the election results:

Hageman goes into the Senate as a freshman Senator and will receive an assignment to the toilet bowl committee.  She's not going to achieve squat for at least four years.

She also posted this screed somewhere on social media:

The people of Wyoming have hired me to do a new job. I am grateful, and I will not let you down. 

Four years ago, you gave me the honor and responsibility that go with serving in the U.S. House of Representatives, and I have worked hard every day to defend your Constitutional rights and look out for your interests in every way possible. I will now move across the Capitol to the Senate, where I will again put my shoulder to the wheel and be the champion Wyoming wants in Washington, D.C.

We are about to engage in a battle for the future of this nation, and as we all recognize, the looming fight with the left is about much more than just policy differences. It’s about the very survival of this country as it has been and as we know it. Are we a capitalist nation, or will we slide precipitously into communism? The left hates our founding principles of freedom, just as they hate our strength and prosperity. A strong United States of America embarrasses them, so they aim to tear it all down. And I aim to stand in their way.

We must keep taxes low, prioritize defending property rights, and produce as much domestic energy as we can. We must protect our borders and enforce immigration laws for those already inside the country. We must aggressively defend freedom and capitalism, or the rabid left and their weak dupes in the Democratic Party will usher in soul-crushing communism.

Wyoming has a great deal at stake in the coming years as we know the forces of the left will stop at nothing to prevent us from safely accessing our own natural resources. Wyoming leads the nation in coal production, has the most uranium reserves, and is prominent in oil and natural gas as well. We must defend America’s energy independence and block all efforts to punish the lawful production of domestic energy. Not only does our economy depend on it, so does the very existence of the United States of America.

As always, I am grateful to President Trump for his continued support. I thank our two current U.S. Senators, Sen. John Barrasso and Sen. Cynthia Lummis, whose retirement was the only reason I decided to run for this seat. And, most of all, I thank the people of Wyoming. 

I can’t wait to join the Republicans in the Senate in January to fight these battles ahead.

This puts Hageman back into the liar category.  The Democrats are not communists and she knows it.

What she might not know is that capitalism is not part of the American political and economic heritage.  It was heavily disfavored in the early republic and should be now, with true free markets being favored.

An increasingly interesting aspect of the last election:

cont:

I should probably make it a seperate thread, but the meaning of Stephen Miller being appointed Chief of Staff cannot be underestimated.

Democrats don't have six weeks to come up with a plan to address Trump.  And Republicans who wish to save themselves better do it right now.

A couple of views, but which I think miss what's about to occur.

Führerbunker time

Stephen Miller Will Drag the GOP Further Into the Electoral Abyss

We don't know what happened in the White House in the immediate aftermath of the election.  Trump seemed at first to accept it, and he hasn't said that he hasn't.  Susie Wiles was let go very quickly however.  We know that there's some discussion of letting Hegseth go, and we know that Hegseth is going to be impeached come the 120th Congress.

But we're not in the 120th Congress.  The 119th is still in session.

Trump is obsessed with his legacy and fears it'll be torn down.  And for good reason, it will be.  Come the next two years, and the advance of old age and dementia will contract that two years, Trump will try to rule through executive order and ignoring the law.  The bloom is coming off that rose, however.  The Democrats know they can't let him do that and will do everything they can, much of it in the courts, to keep that from happen.  

What Trump really has is the next six weeks.

In the next six weeks Trump is going to do everything possible to cement a far right legacy that he himself probably doesn't believe in, but which has become, in his narrow minded way of thinking, the only legacy he has.  A more intelligent person would try to be like Truman, and turn a mid term defeat into a sort of victory by adjusting to the circumstances.  

He's not that smart.

And he doesn't have that much time either.

There are persistent rumors about his health, and his mind is clearly going. 

The first effort along these lines was are on his binkies, the ballroom and the gilded crap in the Oval Office.  Trump can't believe that anyone following him would tear the ballroom down (which is exactly why it needs to be).  This is why, the day after the election, he's out signing the binkie. After he's dead, he thinks, people will look at the binkie and love him.  Indeed, his declining number of fans keep repeating the "it'll be there for future presidents" line.

No, it won't.  Trump has made it so it cannot be.

Same with the gold crap.  Trump signed an order which he believes will preserve it for the future in its current form.

That didn't work for Grand Staircase Escalante, did it?

These are minor things, as they're easy to reverse.  What's coming in the next six weeks won't be.

It should be clear that Trump is, at this point, Miller's vehicle as much as Miller is Trump's.  Miller has a far right wing agenda.  Of all the people in the administration, he is by far the most fascist.  All evidence is that he's a genuine fascist as well, not one of convenience.

Over the next six weeks we're going to see a hardcore push on the wackiest of Trump ideas.  New tariffs will come in.  Real hostility will develop on foreign nations.   The US will sell Ukraine down the river.  We might invade Cuba.

Why?

Because there's only six weeks to do it and this is what the far right in Trump's orbit wants.  If we betray Ukraine, that'll be hard to fix.  If we invade Cuba, we're in a war in Cuba. If we impose new tariffs it will take weeks to unring that bell.

It's their last chance.

November 8, 2026

President Trump has offered the job of Press Secretary to Dana Frederick White Jr., the president and chief executive officer of the Ultimate Fighting Championship.  Figures, it helps toss a bone to the White Trash in MAGA.

November 9, 2026

For those interested:

60 Minutes Transcript: Donald Trump, the 2026 post-midterm elections interview

I read it.  Can't say it was worth doing.

Richard Walters, deputy chief of of staff, is leaving.

cont:

More resignations at the US Attorney's office.  Attorney General Brett Shumate and Assistant Attorney General for National Security John Eisenberg.  These come as its increasingly obvious that Todd Blanche is likely to be impeached.

cont: 

Thomas Massie has introduced a resolution to impeach Hegseth.

November 10, 2026

Barrasso Runs For Minority Whip While Some Republicans Say Wait

John would be a lot more useful to Wyoming if he just quit.  If he won't do that, he should step down from being a whip.  It's not helping us a bit.

cont:

Hageman has no idea why so many American voters are angry at Trump

November 11, 2026

The House used a procedural dodge to avoid voting on Hegseth's impeachment, sending the topic to committee.  The vote was 211 to 204 with 11 Democrats missing the vote.  

No Republicans voted to advance the impeachment, so lawyers who have taken an oath, like Harriet Hageman, have some explaining to do.  She won't do it.  

The chart below shows everyone who missed the votes or abstained, with the GOP House members who missed on the left, and the Democrats on the right.


The chart is from Al Jazeera.

Democrats are expressing outrage at their absent colleagues.  This should end up in Hakeem Jeffries not being Speaker of the House.  It's inexcusable, both on their part, and his.  Some big name democrats, Nancy Pelosi for example, should simply resign their positions right now.

Inexcusable.

Excuses were forthcoming.  

Strickland, Jackson, Stansbury and Gillen all blamed a traffic delay in Washington, DC.  Get there early, twatwaffles.

Jackson, Stansbury, Gillen, Strickland, Horsford, Pelosi and Pettersen all said they would have joined their Democratic colleagues in opposing the measure. Well, you have to be there, you twits.

Jackson and Stansbury also said they recorded their opposition in the Congressional Record which achieves nothing whatsoever.

Stevens is on her way out to Abdul El-Sayed.  El-Sayed, on the failure, stated:

Why are you still doing this job? You are really bad at this. You are failing your responsibility. You have mishandled this war.

and

So just resign. Make it easy for everybody instead of, in the end, getting taken out, because that is clearly what’s happening.

Pelosi was in California at a veterans event, which is lame.  

Correa was in California before undergoing a health procedure. Horsford’s office cited a personal emergency.  Maybe less lame.

Pettersen said she had been “denied the ability to vote on this motion”.  Better explain it.  Was she fighting a hijacker on a bus?  

Wilson, a whopping 83 years old, was last seen at a groundbreaking event in Florida. 83?  What the crud.

If there's any saving grace to this at all, it's clear this would have failed in the Trump Senate, where the color of the GOP isn't red, but yellow.

On other matters.

Barrasso Vows To Fast-Track Judicial Appointments Before Democrats Take Control

Seeing this Congress get in gear to do anything will frankly be surprising.  It could theoretically happen, but I doubt it.

Barrasso ought to just go home to Pennsylvania.

Much closer to home.

Gov.-Elect Barlow Nominates Longtime Energy-Sector Lawyer For Attorney General

Can't opine as I've never heard of him.

November 12, 2026

Crushed in governor’s race, Bextel may be in hot water in Jackson over ‘15 illegal chickens’

The Dixiecrat candidate revealed this, apparently, in her odd interview with Tucker Carlson, but the Town of Jackson is worried about it as the Jacksonite lives on the Forest Service interface and they attract bears.

President Trump is threatening criminal action against Democrats in the 120th Congress investigating him, which is complete bullshit and probably demonstrates why they need to very much investigate him.

Inside Chuck Gray’s working relationship with election denier Cleta Mitchell

Revolting.  Wyofile should have broken that story before the election. Gray should be asked to resign.

Last edition:

2026 Election Post Mortem, Part I. What happened and what happens next.