Wednesday, May 20, 2026

The 2026 Election, 11th Edition. The only good voting Indian is a disenfranchised voting Indian edition.

 


By https://www.facebook.com/eshoshonetribe/, Fair use, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=61356655

Friends & Brothers, listen: Where you now are, you and my white children are too near to each other to live in harmony and peace. Your game is destroyed and many of your people will not work and till the Earth. Beyond the great river Mississippi, where a part of your nation has gone, your father has provided a country large enough for all of you, and he advises you to remove to it. There your white brothers will not trouble you; they will have no claim to the land, and you can live upon it, you and all your children, as long as the grass grows or the water runs, in peace and plenty. It will be yours for ever. For the improvements in the country where you now live, and for all the stock which you cannot take with you, your father will pay you a fair price.

Andrew Jackson, part of a letter to the Creek, 1829.  That sure didn't come true.

Chuck Gray, auditioning for the role of adoring political paramour to Donald Trump, his beloved and dearest, and thick in the throws of turning Wyoming's voter registration roles over to his dearest illegally, is now seeking to have the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision of Louisiana v. Callais applied.  In so doing, he's sent a demand to the Fremont County Commissioners to redistrict their county commissioner boundaries to wipe out a district that was designed to provide a commissioner from the Wind River Reservation, and he's written the Governor about the legislative districts, stating; "“I believe House District 33’s boundaries need to be examined to ensure compliance with Callais” .

Let's look first at what Callais actually says which few pundits have to date.  It's a long decision, so we'll only post part of it, but that part is where the Court made its decision:

So what that tells us is:

1.  A district must have a basis in more than race.

2.  The jerrymandering by race cannot have a demonstrable impact in favor of a political party.

3.  The totality of the circumstances must be considered.

Chuck, who loves Trump more than Trump loves Trump, has made a name for himself by being a divisive asshole and this will be no exception. The over monied little man who has never really worked likes to scream and howl, but this may prove to be a mistake in his bid for the House.  A large percentage of Wyomingites do not like him for variety of legitimate reasons, and he's been taking flak from the right from gadfly Reid Rasner, to which he's flop around like a fish on a deck trying to react to, and not very effectively.  Gray probably sees this action to terminate Native American districts on the Reservation as serving his far right nut case masters' cause of bringing back the Confederacy, but he's not a lawyer and disrupting Wyoming districts, ironically in one of the most conservative regions of the state, may not go well and is not likely to be appreciated.

There's a fair chance it might not succeeds as well.

Fremont County has a voting district for the county commission that causes it to have one commissioners who is drawn from the Wind River Reservation.  That was in fact the intent of the boundary.  And it has one House District that is also from the Reservation.  The legislator who is from that districts, HD33, is Ivan Posey, who is enrolled in the Eastern Shoshone Tribe but also also has Northern Cheyenne and Northern Arapaho ancestors.

Gray, of course, is a carpetbagging white rich unmarried white boy, but this fits right into the current MAGA effort that's disenfranchising minorities in a country that's on the verge of becoming a majority minority nation.  While they aren't willing to say it, MAGA basically hopes that they can reverse this demographic trend.

They can't, and they'll pay for it soon.

Here, Gray, who isn't a Wyomingite in the first place, likely doesn't grasp that the Wind River Reservation isn't solely an ethnic boundary, but the home to two sovereigns.  So there's a racial and sovereign divide here.  I suspect that these boundaries will hold up.

They already voted Democratic, they sure will in the future.  Gray's ordering the Fremont County Commission and Governor Gordon around may not sit well with the voters, and frankly they're likely to tell him to pound sand, in which case he'll sue, and try to disrupt the general election.  That won't work.

Gray needs to be sent packing.  He needs to find a real job for the first time in his life.  Let's hope he's offered one out on Wind River.

By Elders of the Arapaho Nation [2] - This W3C-unspecified vector image was created with Inkscape . based on photo and description here, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1031311

We will note here that the GOP race in Wyoming is turning batshit crazy with panicked Freedom Caucusers concerned that the South might not rise again while one notable one is actually attacking Donald Trump.  Hardcore WFC members are supporting Still Sucking On the Government Tit Bien.  While I may be imagining it, Bien seems to draw support from the less educated and poorer sections of the Wyoming population which demonstrates something peculiar, but I don't know what.  The more likely you are to economically and personally be hurt by Bien's world outlook of no social services and hardly pull yourself up by your bootstraps, while he sucks on the government tit, the more likely you are to support him.  

It's dumb.

Yesterday, of course, we have the oddity of Rebecca Bextel announcing a completely delusional and panicky run for the Governor's office on the Constitution Party ticket.  In a more sane political structure, all of the state's Cornfederates would be in that party.  Poor Bextel thinks she's a conservative, and has this on her website:
Like many of you, I know Megan Degenfelder or Brent Bien would make an excellent Governor! I sincerely hope one of them beats out Eric Barlow for the Republican nomination, but unfortunately, history is not on the side of us conservatives.

Well, that's just deluded, but it's typical of the Cornfederates who aren't conservatives or even Republicans, but think they are.  She's going to lose big and hopefully the WFC does in general, so they can go back to Sweet Home Alabama (where Bextel is actually from) and leave the West alone.


Go home Becky. . . the Southland is calling you.

cont:

And it looks like state legislators are beginning to see the pitchforks. . .South Carolina dropped its effort, Louisiana refused the map Trump wanted them to adopt., Mississippi decided to wait until 2027.

May 15, 2026

Bill Allemand, a complete and total no go on our list, is running for reelection to House District 58.  His DUI trial has not yet occurred.  He  faced opposition from Bar Nunn Mayor Peter Boyer as well as  Democrat.

J. R. Riggins is running for reelection in House District 59.  He faces opposition from the batshit carpetbagger far right.

Art Washut is running for reelection to House District 36.

May 16, 2026

Chuck Gray is being treated as sort of an irritating toddler, which he deserves.


Democrat  Kenneth R. Casner has announced his run for Governor.  He's 75 years old which puts him in the category of candidates who are too darned old to hold, yet alone run for, office.

May 17, 2026
Let me just set the record straight: Our country is not about one individual. It is about the welfare of all Americans and it is about our Constitution.  And if someone doesn’t understand that and attempts to control others through using the levers of power, they’re about serving themselves. They’re not about serving us. And that person is not qualified to be a leader.
Bill Cassidy after losing his bid to be reelected as a Senator from Louisiana.

May 19, 2026

Controversial former mayor of Evansville, Wyoming has announced she's running for Natrona County Commissioner.


May 20, 2026

The remaining influence of a demented octogenarian narcissist on the dwindling number of Republicans proved strong last night as Thomas Massie fell to a Trump paramour in Kentucky. Massie fell into Trump's ire principally as he wouldn't give up on the administration releasing the Epstein files.

A couple of lesson are applicable here, one being that the Epstein files must definitely contain something that Trump fears more than death itself, that his unhinged rage in his demented state is getting worse, and that the declining pool of Republican voters will be more and more hardcore members of MAGA.  Everyone else has left.  This will cause the GOP to race ever deeper into fascism and its remaining conservatives to increasingly leave the party intellectually, if not in fact.

Trump's replacing adoring sycophant is Ed Gallrein, a former Navy SEAL, increasing the military fascistic nature of the current GOP.

It's a tragedy for the nation in the short term.  In the long term, continued picks of fascistic toady's increases the chances of the MAGA being utterly destroyed in the Fall.

It'll also prove to be a tragedy for non MAGA views of Israel.  Piles of pro Israeli PAC money were spent in the race against Massie.  Public views are really changing towards Israel and to see groups that back Israel dedicating such an effort to get rid of an American Congressman doesn't help.  For people like myself, who have had a nuanced view on Israel for decades, it's now really impossible not to see the current Israeli government and the current American government in a highly negative light.  That's one thing, but anti semitism is really rising in the US and by now Muslim Americans have likely realized that supporting Trump in the last election was a massive mistake.

Massie won voters under 45 years of age by 30 points. . . that says something, and not something that the GOP will like in the future.  People hate it when you inject ageism into something, but there is a real "get off my lawn" element to current politics.

Locally, the Shoshone and Arapahoe tribes are clearly not going GOP this fall:

Tribal governments denounce Gray for ‘direct attack on Native voting

And as that what we started with, we'll conclude with that one.

And so we are rapidly finalizing the political landscape.  If you are black, Hispanic, Native American, Catholic, or Muslim, the GOP has no place for you.  If you would have voted for Strom Thurmond, it's your party.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 10th Edition. The Setting the stage for a Pyrrhic Victory edition.Labels: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

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