The margin on this bill is so tight that five votes has a very good chance of sinking it in the House.
Good for the five.
And shame on Wyoming's delegation in Congress if it does not follow suit.
Showing posts with label 119th Congress. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 119th Congress. Show all posts
Friday, June 27, 2025
Thursday, June 26, 2025
Tuesday, June 24, 2025
Going Feral: Blog Mirror: Blog Mirror: Senate referee rules out public land sales in megabill
Going Feral: Blog Mirror: Senate referee rules out public land...:
Blog Mirror: Senate referee rules out public land sales in megabill
However, Lee still promises a new provision.
Senate referee rules out public land sales in megabill
Wednesday, June 18, 2025
Wyoming's broken politics.
Former Wyoming Governor Francis E. Warren, and sitting Senator at the time of the Johnson County War, F. E. Warren was a Republican Senator who knew how to cover his ass, whic his why he was able to survive the scandal of Republican support for the invasion of Johnson and Natrona Counties. That scandal took down the GOP in the state for a period of time.
Back at least a decade ago I had a conversation with a high ranking member of the Wyoming Republican Party about some really odd going ons down at Cheyenne. He stated, broken hearted, that Wyoming politicians had been "bought".
That's a pretty broad accusation. What he likely really meant is that right about that time the state started to be flooded by out of state political money, and it often went right into the most radical right wing politicians. Wealthy people moving into the state brought their politics with them, and in a few cases if was radically far right. That gave us, for example, the absurd example of Foster Friess and his goofball Dukes of Hazzard campaign for governor.
It also gave us, however, some people who moved in specifically for political reason. Chuck Gray, the family money backed son of a wealthy Republican, who was born in California and went to school at Wharton, like Trump, moved into the state and ran for office nearly immediately. Living in a district in which the long time occupant of a legislative seat died, he managed to leverage a position at his father's radio station into a legislative seat, and then captured the office of the Secretary of State in spite of having very little connection with the state in which he sits. He's been a constant stream of Trump like invective. His seat was taken over by Jeanette Ward, who was if anything even further to the far right. Ward, from Illinois, came to Wyoming as a "political refugee" and had been here so briefly that she barely qualified for her seat when she ran. Her politics were too far to the right for even that district, which booted her after one embarrassing term in Cheyenne where she espoused far right populist, far right Evangelical, positions.
The state GOP was likewise taken over by far right populists, about whom we hear less now, but who went to war with the traditional GOP. They were largely successful, duping, although I expect only temporarily, a large number of Wyoming voters into believing the sh** sandwiches which Trump and his allies serve up as alleged filet mignon.
That they can be duped is because the state is in economic distress, and regular people don't know what to do about it. Global Warming is real, not some sort of fib, and long term coal and oil are doomed. A large number of workers who relocated form Texas and Oklahoma, and the like, are fairly poorly educated on top of it and are relatively easy to lead by being told that what they want to be true, is true. The agricultural sector, which has deeply ingrained conservative tendencies, is rolling over from a generation that basically stopped its education at high school to one which is now college educated, but in the meantime the older agriculturalist who control the operations deeply want to believe that operations can be run the way they were in the 1970s, and that threats they need to deal with, which include Global Warming and the buying power of the Super Rich, really don't.
Basically, Wyoming's current politics can be explained by people voting for what they want to believe, over reality. Coal and oil are never going way. You'll always be able to get a job in the extractive industries, or as a truck driver, with a high school diploma, or even without one. There are no deep existential problems with the economy here that aren't the result of a conspiracy against us.
It can't be us.
But it can be.
And right now, it is.
A further part of the problem, however, is that the Democratic Party in the state has displayed a level of intellectual denseness that would suck light out of a black hole It's stunning.
It wasn't all that time that Wyoming had a viable Democratic Party that could serious contend for statewide and national seats. That started to change, however, during the Clinton Administration for reasons that are now hard to discern, although the decline of unionized mining jobs in Wyoming are likely part of that problem. Even after that, however, we had a Democratic Governor.
As the Democratic Party in the state declined it took on a lot of the same trend lines that the national Democratic Party did, which has helped explain the rise of Trump. In a state that was both sort of conservative and sort of libertarian, they became goofball left wing as an organization, although not all of their candidates reflected that. Over time, the Democrats never saw a fetus in the womb that they didn't' want to kill, or a brand new perversion that they didn't want to celebrate. A party which at one time was lead by burly miners or grumpy rural lawyers is now lead by a guy who has the appearance of a bow tie wearing nerd.
Recent promo photograph of the Democratic Party. This is a far cry from a party that once put a World War Two Marine Corps Raider in the Governor's office, a World War Two infantryman in Congress and a gruff prosecutor into office. Marine Corps Raider gets votes, and inspires confidence. Bow Tie Wearing Doofus does not. And is that buffalo smiling?
Hypocritical or not, Wyomingites aren't going to vote for a party that they associate with men in tutus and that it's all okay. Men might go into the voting booth with their third wife at home, before they go to see their mistress, but they're going to regard that as contrary to the moral law. Interestingly, if politics returned to the "I don't care what you do, just leave me alone" ethos it once had, they'd be fine with that. Indeed, that's how their living their private lives already.
In fairness, however, the last two chairmen of the Wyoming GOP don't win high marks either. The current one, Bryan Miller, is another of the "I spent my life in the military and hate the government" Republicans. After decades of drawing on the government tit, they claim to know what's wrong in a state where most people don't, or at least not openly.
We may, just might, be at a turning point, however.
We are certainly at a point where Republican office holders ignoring the real views of the state can be exploited.
Dr. John Barrasso. He went from orthopedic surgeon to the Senate, having been appointed by the Legislature. At age 72, he's now the Senate Whip and doesn't appear to have any desire to retire any time soon.
Wyomingites are overwhelmingly opposed to public lands being transferred out of government control. In spite of that, Dr. John Barrasso supported Federal lands being transferred to the states in the 2016 GOP platform. That didn't happen in part because Eric Trump is a hunter. Barrasso darned well knew that Wyomingites didn't support that, but somebody he was listening to did, as he supported it against the wishes of his constituents.
72 year old Barrasso is in that class of politicians who desperately seem to want to hang on to their jobs in spite of their advancing old age. At 72 he ought to be retired, but he hung on and is how the Senate Whip. Once a Republican moderate, he became a Trumpite by necessity. That means he could become a moderate again, and if the political winds shifted, he would.
This issue is one in which he's hearing from hundreds of Wyomingites per day. He's heard from me twice.
He hasn't responded, but he hasn't said what his position is.
If the proposals to transfer public lands advance, he ought to be sent packing.
Cynthia Lummis. Once the State Treasurer, she entered the U.S. House in 2009, but stepped down in 2017 to take care of her dying husband, a very admirable thing to do.
70 year old Cynthia Lummis is likewise in the age group that ought to be out of politics. She actually returned to it, however, to take her current Senate seat. Lummis condescendingly stated that all Federal lands didn't need to remain in Federal lands forever, which is intellectually the same as maintaining that all privately held lands don't either, something she'd be in horror about as she comes from a ranching family. She's also shown an ability to tack into the wind, however, as she was once a Trump opponent and now is a Trump backer.
Lummis is making sort of a big deal right now about her cryptocurrency bill which just passed the Senate, and nickname Crypto Queen she's been tagged with. The truth is, however, that the overwhelming majority of Wyomingites don't give a rusty rats ass about this topic and aren't going to remember diddly squat about this bill. It'll soon be a "what?" sort of topic.
The public lands vote, however won't be.
Harriet Hageman. She ran an unsuccessful campaign for Governor against Mark Gordon and then, when Liz Cheney ran into trouble, ran against he rand obtained her seat.
Harriet Hageman is on her first time as Congresswoman, having been able to take advantage of her former friend Liz Cheney's downfall. Hageman is the only one of Wyoming's Washington delegation who probably comes by her public land vote, which was in favor of the Federal sales bill, honestly. Daughter of Jim Hageman, who spent 23 years in the Wyoming House of Representatives, Hageman is from a farming family from Southeastern Wyoming where there is very little public land. Jim Hageman was one of the backers of a proposal to allow for the privatization of wildlife in Wyoming, which almost destroyed the GOP during its go around.
This issue could be a similar one.
Wyomingites should make it.
At the top of this page is a portrait of Francis E. Warren. Warren had been territorial governor, and then the first governor, of the State of Wyoming.
I don't admire him.
But his ability to read the political winds is admirable.
The state Republican Party was complicit in the invasion as so many of those in it were connected with Republican politics. Planned at the Cheyenne Club, people kne what was going on. Republican Governor Amos Barber did and had arranged to activate the National Guard in order to keep it from being deployed to Central Wyoming to stop the invasion.
Barber lost his seat following the event.
The Republicans lost the legislature.
Warren kept his.
There's a lesson there for those currently in office. . . and those who wish to be.
Amos W. Barber. A dentist by profession, like Barrasso is a surgeon by profession, he disgraced himself with his support of the invaders in the Johnson County War and then thereafter by attempting to retain his office after he was defeated for reelection. He became Wyoming Secretary of State immediately after that, as that was his prior office at the time of Warren's elevation to the Senate, and then returned to his dental practice. Oddly, like the current occupant of the Secretary of State's chair, he was a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania.
Sunday, June 8, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 87th Edition. No, "Liberals" are not flocking to Musk.
It's really interesting to watch the hardcore MAGA mind at work.
The same people who, last month, were all atwitter with Elon Musk now reject him and claim that "Liberals" are flocking back to Musk.
No, they aren't.
For not MAGAites, Must is forever tainted, as he well should be. What those outside of the Trump orbit are rejoicing in is the fight between Musk and Trump. That doesn't amount to welcoming Musk back to anything. Rather, it's enjoying the mutual assured destruction between two such damaging personalities.
Trumpites who are claiming a welcoming back are, rather, trying to comfort themselves from the reality that Donald Trump really only stands for chaos, not for Conservatism (which is where I reside), or much else. If Musk fell out with him, it's because Musk seems to have a slight bit more fiscal sense than Trump, and the majority of Republican Congressman, who are wrecking the nation's finances. The populists don't seem to appreciate that's happening, and the National Conservatives, which have other goals, don't seem to care.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 86th Edition: Oh my. . .
Friday, December 20, 2024
And the first drama of the new House of Representatives will be. . .
finding a replacement for Mike Johnson.
And that's likely to take forever.
Monday, August 5, 2024
An existential wakeup call.
Just the other day, I ran this:
Lex Anteinternet: Intellectual disconnect. With everything on fire, ...: The weather report for today from the Trib: A headline from Cowboy State Daily: ‘It Was Armageddon’: Eastern Wyoming Community Evacuated By ...
Now, from Cowboy State Daily, we learn this:
Wildfire Burns Harriet Hageman’s Family Homestead, More Evacuations Ordered
By any measure, this is tragic. And the story is well written, and sympathetic. Indeed, it provides some details about Hageman that I was unaware of, including the size of her very large family I didn't realize that she was one of six siblings.
That frankly explains why she's a lawyer. The law was, and to some extent still remains, the occupation that agricultural parents often want to see a child go into, often due to the erroneous belief that lawyers don't really work.
That's not the point here, however. At some point in her post high school life Hageman turned to the very hard right, or at least seemed to, and has been part of the Wyoming position that's all in on unaltered fossil fuel production.
The degree to which agriculturalist refuse to accept the science on this in Wyoming is itself really remarkable. Farmers and ranchers depend on the land being sustainable, worry about drought and heat, and then go on to dismiss what they're seeing with their own eyes.
The article notes that the Hageman's tragically lost their early home on the ranch, with this one currently belonging to a nephew. I believe that nephew may have appeared in her campaign ads. It also related:
About 8,000 acres of Hugh Hageman’s 25,000-to-30,000-acre spread burned, taking away some of the pasture needed for his 1,000 head of cattle.
“It’s devastating,” said Hugh Hageman when reached by Cowboy State Daily late Friday.
I'm sure it is.
Reality calls up on us to recognize it, not hide from it.
This ought to be the state's Pearl Harbor moment.
Thursday, June 6, 2024
119th Congress, Part 3.
2011 Navalny designed poster about Putin's United Russia party, declaring it to be a "party of crooks and thieves".
March 29, 2024
The House of Representatives will see Speaker Mike Johnson push for funding for Ukraine through a bill that's been sitting in the dysfunctional House for a month when they return from their recess from not getting anything done.
Donald Putin, who loves Putin and hates Ukraine, has frustrated the advance of the Bill. Marjorie Taylor Green will push to being Johnson down.
Absolutely pathetic.
And this while Ukraine fights for its life.
April 15, 2024
Still not having achieved a thing, the House will apparently consider aid to Ukraine this week as it will, in the same bill, consider aid to Israel, the drive for which was heightened by the weekend airborne flop by Iran.
Following this MTG, who is in Congress for some unfathomable reason, will push to remove Mike Johnson, who will survive the attack, particularly as his Trump has given him his seal of approval.
April 16, 2024
Speaker of the House Johnson signed the bill of impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas, sending the issue of his performance in regard to the nation's immigration laws over to the Senate for rapid disposal, as this bill of impeachment is just theater.
April 20, 2024
About bloody time, and better late than never, assuming it's not too late.
Finally, Mike Johnson, who apparently prayed about the matter, found his courage.
May 2, 2024
Greene of Georgia is carrying through with her threat to force a vote to remove Speaker Johnson, calling to attention as she does so that he will rely upon Democratic votes to keep his job, as if that's some sort of character defect.
Going Feral: U.S. House of Representatives votes to remove wolv...
May 10, 2024
The ultimate MAGA House member, Marjorie Taylor Greene, took a run at removing Speaker of the House Johnson and failed.
May 15, 2024
Speaker Johnson, fresh from finding his backbone, appeared outside of the courtroom where Trump is being tried for allegedly having illicit sex with Stormy Daniels and then paying her to shut up about it, demonstrated that he is perfectly capable of reverting to sycophant.
June 6, 2024
President Biden signed an executive order which shuts the border down once there are 2,500 encounters on the same.
Last prior edition:
119th Congress, Part 2.
Tuesday, June 4, 2024
Friday, May 10, 2024
Wars and Rumors of War, 2024. Part 5. A Wider War.
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.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse.
John Stuart Mill
April 14, 2024.
The Middle Eastern War.
This was mentioned yesterday, but in North America we're waking up to the news that Iran, the supplier of drones to Russia, used a huge number of drones in an airborne assault on Israel yesterday which was combined with missiles.
Because that's going to serve somebody's interest?
This was retaliatory in nature, of course, but it was also monumentally stupid on the part of Iran.
Almost all the Iranian munitions were shot down. The few that got through caused minor damage. The US participated in the airborne defense.
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine's defense chief warned that its battlefield situation has significantly worsened in recent days.
Mike Johnson, pick up your copy of John Stuart Mill.
April 17, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukrainian forces destroy Russian air defense systems in Crimea
The Middle Eastern War
Israel has carried out a retaliatory air strke on Iran. The details are sketchy at this time, but drones appear to be involved.
A big difference appears to be that Israel hit its targets, as opposed to Iran, which demonostrated an inability to get theirs through, although the US, UK and France helped Israel in its defense.
China v. US
A hacking campaign by China called Volt Typhoon has gained access to telecommunications, energy, water and 23 pipeline operators targeted, amongst other infrastrucure.
It should be obvious that China is preparing for war against the US, which will come over Taiwan.
April 19, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War/Middle Eastern War/China v. Taiwan.
Massively belatedly, the House of Representatives voted 316-94 to advance military aid to Ukraine, Taiwan and Israel. A final vote will come on Saturday, as this was procedural.
Isolationist are having a fit and will now take a run at removing Speaker Johnson, the latter having found his courage this week, at long last.
April 20, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War/Middle Eastern War/China v. Taiwan.
About bloody time, and better late than never, assuming it's not too late.
Finally, Mike Johnson, who apparently prayed about the matter, found his courage.
April 22, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
In listing to This Week, I learned that a majority of GOP Congressman voted against aid to Ukraine.
Shameful.
Some of the commentary on the weekend shows suggest that Speaker Johnson may have changed his mind in part because of intelligence briefings. If that's the case, we ought to be truly fearful of Russia winning the war.
MJT tried to insert an amendment into the bill which would have required all those who voted for the bill to become Ukrainian conscripts.
Middle Eastern War
Air strikes in Razah killed 22 people.
The US is imposing sanctions on the Netzah Yehuda Battalion, a unit for ultra Orthodox Jews, most of whom do not serve in the Israeli military and who are exempted from universal male conscription that the country generally imposes.
It's difficult to see how attempting to sanction a single unit would work.
April 24, 2024
Middle Eastern War
Pro Palestinian demonstrations are causing havoc across campuses in the US as protesters.
Anti-Semitic elements in these protests have been very notable, including delusional ones such as LGBTQ supporting protesters supporting, effectively, Hamas, even though Hamas would likely put a 9mm to their heads if they were in Palestine.
Stay tuned to see if the Horst Wessel song reappears.
Russo Ukrainian War
The aid bill passed the Senate 79 to 18. Wyoming's two Senators, who normally would have voted yes, voted no, so they can bow down to the Populist Party.
Iran v. Everyone
Four Iranians were arrested for a hacking scheme aimed at Federal agencies.
April 25, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine deployed M57A1 ATACMS ballistic missiles against Russian targets in Crimea. The new missiles vastly increase Ukraine's ability to hit deep into Russian held territory.
The sudden appearance of the missiles suggest that Ukraine was supplied them prior to the recent funding bill, which was only signed into law yesterday, but withheld use of them until the bill was passed.
Russia, regarding the bill, predictably squealed like a stuck pig or like Donald Trump complaining about being on trial for his prurient interest, while it itself has used long range missiles fairly indiscriminately in Ukraine.
Pope Francis in an interview with CBS News declared that a "negotiated peace is better than a war without end", calling on warring parties in Ukraine and the Middle East to negotiate.
Of interset here, perhaps, the Vatican recently released its "Declaration of the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith “Dignitas Infinita” on Human Dignity”, the same appearing on April 8. While I've noted it elsewhere, I suspect that Catholics in particular, or at least some Catholics, have grown so weary of documents issued by Pope Francis that they're being ignored and dreaded at this point. Indeed, many Catholics are holding their breath on what will come out of the Synod on Snyodality. Anyhow, Dignatas Infinita, which people were holding their breath on before it came out (it had been announced that something was coming out) didn't receive very much attention from the world at large and frankly from Catholics as well, as sure sign that just too darned much is being generated by this Papacy.
What notice it drew from Catholic circles tended to focus on the concept of "infinite dignity", and what that meant. I haven't followed the results of that, and there wasn't that much discussion of it to start with. The Pope, however, drew a lot of flak for his statements on transgenderism, which are perfectly in line with Catholic beliefs. We'll deal with that elsewhere.
What surprisingly didn't receive much attention was his statements on war, which were:
War
38. Another tragedy that denies human dignity, both in the past and today, is war: “War, terrorist attacks, racial or religious persecution, and many other affronts to human dignity […] ‘have become so common as to constitute a real ‘third world war’ fought piecemeal.’”[64] With its trail of destruction and suffering, war attacks human dignity in both the short and long term: “While reaffirming the inalienable right to self-defense and the responsibility to protect those whose lives are threatened, we must acknowledge that war is always a ‘defeat of humanity.’ No war is worth the tears of a mother who has seen her child mutilated or killed; no war is worth the loss of the life of even one human being, a sacred being created in the image and likeness of the Creator; no war is worth the poisoning of our common home; and no war is worth the despair of those who are forced to leave their homeland and are deprived, from one moment to the next, of their home and all the family, friendship, social and cultural ties that have been built up, sometimes over generations.”[65] All wars, by the mere fact that they contradict human dignity, are “conflicts that will not solve problems but only increase them.”[66] This point is even more critical in our time when it has become commonplace for so many innocent civilians to perish beyond the confines of a battlefield.
39. Therefore, even today, the Church cannot but make her own the words of the Pontiffs, repeating with Pope St. Paul VI: “jamais plus la guerre, jamais plus la guerre!” [“never again war, never again war!”].[67] Moreover, together with Pope St. John Paul II, the Church pleas “in the name of God and in the name of man: Do not kill! Do not prepare destruction and extermination for people! Think of your brothers and sisters who are suffering hunger and misery! Respect each one’s dignity and freedom!”[68] As much now as ever, this is the cry of the Church and of all humanity. Pope Francis underscores this by stating, “We can no longer think of war as a solution because its risks will probably always be greater than its supposed benefits. In view of this, it is very difficult nowadays to invoke the rational criteria elaborated in earlier centuries to speak of the possibility of a ‘just war.’ Never again war!”[69] Since humanity often falls back into the same mistakes of the past, “in order to make peace a reality, we must move away from the logic of the legitimacy of war.”[70] The intimate relationship between faith and human dignity means it would be contradictory for war to be based on religious convictions: “The one who calls upon God’s name to justify terrorism, violence, and war does not follow God’s path. War in the name of religion becomes a war against religion itself.”[71]
These statements are not really novel, but they certainly call into question the concept of a just war, while not abrogating it completely. This is interesting as well as certainly in the region itself the Ukrainian Catholic Church, if not backing the war openly, seems to be generally.
I would note here something that's widely misunderstood. Wars today, while they do feature civilian death, and Russia certainly has been indiscriminate in its use of airborne munitions on Ukraine, and Israel has been leveling parts of Gaza, is actually less destructive on civilians that it was some 80 years ago and that is the overall actual trend.
April 26, 2024
Middle Eastern War
Hamas proposed to lay down its arms if an independent Palestinian state, which we have a long dormant thread in the hopper on, were to be created.
More specifically, it proposed:
“a fully sovereign Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and the return of Palestinian refugees in accordance with the international resolutions,”
Israel is unlikely to accept that, but more than that, is such a tiny rump state even viable?
Meanwhile, Hamas and Palestinian groups have shelled the construction area for the humanitarian pier.
May 1, 2024
Middle Eastern War
Russia and China are hosting a conference on "Palestinian reconciliation" which seeks to give Hamas a role in the West Bank.
The move is particularly cynical for China, which occupies a large landmass, Tibet, which was an actual independent nation with its own ethnicity more recently than Israel's gaining of independence and which further suppresses its Muslim population.
Further ironic are university protests across the nation effectively in support of Hamas which feature groups that, if they appeared in areas of their outright control, would be murdered. A person can imagine that these protests are in support of Levantine independence in the region, or against Israeli actions in Gaza, but you have to jump through some uncomfortable hoops to get there.
May 2, 2024
Middle Eastern War
College campus protests in the US have grown large.
Shades of 1968, or something else?
Columbia has severed ties with Israel.
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine will start operating F-16s after May 5.
May 3, 2024
Niger
Niger has invited Russian troop to encamp at an airfield used by US troops.
Middle Eastern War
Campus arrests in the US continued yesterday.
All of this is helping Trump, so the irony stands a good chance of being that the protests get Trump elected who 1) is more pro Israeli than Biden, 2) will be anti-Islamic, and 3) whose views on Putin stand a good chance of getting the US into a war with Russia when Russia invades a NATO country.
But, hey, protests are fun. You can feel like you are really doing something, even if you aren't doing anything positive.
The UN reports that it would take until 2040 to rebuild the homes in Gaza that have been destroyed.
Given that Gaza isn't economically viable and a crap hole, it shouldn't be rebuilt, which should be obvious to all, but won't be as the Arab nations don't want the Levantines to move, and the Levantines are too politically juvenile to grasp that their future is elsewhere.
May 5, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
The Russians are in Ocheretyne and Arkhanhelske. Ukrainian forces have been struggling with a lack of artillery ammunition due to the circus in the U.S. Congress.
May 6, 2024
Middle Eastern War
Cease fire talks have broken down.
May 7, 2024
Middle Eastern War
Israeli ground forces entered Rafah following a series of air strikes.
Russo Ukrainian War
It appears clear that the Russians are building towards a more pronounced offensive in the north.
May 9, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
The Ukrainian government has passed a bill to conscript prisoners.
Not a good sign, really.
The President has not signed it into law as of yet, and it doesn't allow conscription of those convicted of the worst offenses or having more than three years left on their sentence.
May 10, 2024
Middle Eastern War
Israeli ground forces entered actually only went as far as the crossing into Rafah, which they now control. President Biden has indicated that the US will scale back military support for Israel extensively if Israel enters the city. Israel has indicated that it intends to do so none the less.
The US has withheld a shipment of 3,000 areal bombs to Israel over the potential that they'd be used in Rafah.
And this concludes this edition.
Related threads:
Iron Domes and Chutzpah
Last prior edition:
Wars and Rumors of War, 2024. Part 4. "Maybe I shall find them among the dead."
Thursday, April 18, 2024
The Impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas. Panem et circenses
April 17, 2024.
9.4 million illegal aliens have entered this country under President Biden, 1 million more than the population of New York City and more than 16x the population of Wyoming.
The unprecedented invasion is a direct result of the open borders agenda of
@POTUS
and Alejandro Mayorkas.
From a Twitter post of Wyoming Senator Cynthia Lummis.
Alejandro Mayorkas is not going to be removed from office.
Moreover, everyone with any political savvy knows this. Sen. Lummis knows this, as do the other members of Wyoming's Washington representation, one of whom will be a prosecutor in the impeachment trial, if an impeachment trial actually occurs, which I very much doubt.
Rather, the Senate Republicans will screw around with this until the Democrats dismiss it.
The validity of the impeachment process will be tarnished even more than it has been since the ill-advised GOP effort to impeach Bill Clinton brought us into the modern political impeachment era, and the border won't get address, in no small part because Donald Trump, who is in the first of what will be several trials, would rather have it as issue than address it.
Congress, of course, could have addressed this, but for following the Trump directive to the GOP. There's utterly no excuse for the GOP failure to act. If the bill wasn't prefect, it was much better than any others for years, and if they take a two house and Oval Office majority in November, which I doubt they will, they could have improved it. Indeed, their failure to act not only makes this look incredibly hypocritical, but puts them in jeopardy of losing the House.
We will see a Twitter storm of GOP tweets. Most will be ignored. The worshiping spectrum of the GOP, the ignorant populists masses, will swoon over every word while the now purifying corpse of the GOP elephant starts to stink even more, actual Republicans and conservatives not knowing how to remove it.
Indeed, on the Twitter Storm, populist far right Nebraska Senator Deb Fischer took to twitter to demand that Mayorkas receive a full trial in the Senate as, she suggested, the Constitution demands, while at least one of her critics noted she didn't feel that way when Trump was up for impeachment.
All this while very little gets done and Americans lose faith in their government, save for a tiny sliver who somehow feel the dissolution of a 200+ year old institution is serving democracy, when in fact it's destroying it.
April 18, 2024
And the Senate dismissed the articles of impeachment, making my prediction of no trial accurate. I thought there would be a motion to dismiss, and there was.
The motion came up immediately, and Chuck Schumer offered debate time, but Republicans, who apparently have no sense of procedure, rejected that, demanding a full trial, and thereby demonstrating the sort of hubris, ignorance and stupidity that criminal defendants sometimes do. Schumer replied and went right to the vote.
The vote was down the party line, Republicans who know better not having the guts to vote in favor of the motion.
By this point, the dysfunctional circus that Congress has become now attracts so little attention for even extraordinary events, which this fits into as it's an extraordinary dereliction of duty and common sense by those who voted for it in the House, that it doesn't even make the primary headlines.
No doubt Wyoming's Senators went home and breathed a sigh of relief, being spared acting on this absurdity, and also being spared the pangs of acting in contravention to their conscience. And the issue is preserved for red meat tweets, texts and speeches, so attacking the Democrats on an issue that Republicans refused to act on, when they had the chance, can still be done.
And hence this circus closed.
Saturday, March 23, 2024
119th Congress, Part 2.
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February 4, 2024
The House of Representatives will move forward with a $17.6 billion bill this week that provides military aid to Israel and replenishes U.S. weapons, but leaves out more help for Ukraine.
It will not pass the Senate.
The Senate apparently left the House out of its efforts to negotiate on these topics, which shows the level of dissention between the two bodies.
Ukraine has become an increasingly hot topic in the House, which is strongly influenced by Trump, who is a Putin fan.
February 5, 2024
Mexican Border Crisis
February 6, 2024
Yesterday Mitch McConnell urged Republicans to vote for the Senate bill then in a closed door meeting urged them to vote against it.
President Biden threatened to veto the House's stand-alone aid package to Israel.
Cont:
Cont:
The House failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. All the Democrats voted against this, and the following Republicans retained their integrity on this matter; Rep. Tom McClintock (CA-05), Rep. Ken Buck (CO-04), and Rep. Mike Gallagher (WI-08). Rep. Blake Moore (UT-01) also voted no, but on procedural grounds to that this may be brought back up again, even though it should not.
Look for all four, including Moore, to suffer the same fate as Liz Cheney.
February 14, 2024
Yesterday the House managed to get the Big Top in order and the GOP was able to impeach Mayorkas.
This now goes to the Senate, which will have to deal with it, but he'll retain his job.
Wyoming's Congressman Harriet Hageman will be a Senate Trial Manager for the impeachment.
Impeachments, which were rare up until Bill Clinton was wrongfully impeached, were once rare. Now they're becoming extremely common, a sign of the collapse of American government.
The Senate voted aid for Ukraine. Wyoming's Senator John Barrasso voted against it, then came out with a statement noting his strong support for Ukraine. Clearly he's worried about the strong MAGA base in Wyoming.
February 26, 2025
February 28, 2024
One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter, so I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.
Mitch McConnell, earlier today.
Personally, I suspect the almost certain election of Trump this Fall, and the descent of the GOP into a nativist, isolationist, Evangelist, Populist Party had a lot to do with this.
This is, frankly, not a good development at all.
March 1, 2024
The House passed a stopgap funding bill yesterday.
March 10, 2024
President Biden has signed the bill.
March 14, 2024
The House of Representatives took passed a bill which might ban TikTok due to its Chinese ownership and fears that it exploits information for the benefit of the PRC.
Oh my, what will over endowed teens and twenty-something girls now do?
I have to admit that I find it almost impossible to care about this, which in turn contributes to my cynicism. I don't know if the Chinese are mining vast amounts of data from TikTok and frnakly I'm in favor of banning the vast amount of the Internet that's hypersexualized porn of some sort in any event. But that's not why it's being banned. I can't help suspecting that its being banned as this is a feel good moment for a body that's done almost nothing.
Address the border? Nope.
Address Russian aggression in Ukraine? Nyet.
Let's ban TikTok instead.
Well, if I was there, I'd probably vote to ban it too. It's trash. I just find it amusing that this, and seemingly this alone, is the one thing they seem to be able to do.
March 21, 2024
Republican Congressmen have introduced a bill, the details of which I have not yet learned, to raise Social Security retirement age to 69.
Yikes.
This follows a series of comments by Republican figures recently, at first taken to have been made in a gadfly like fashion, that taking retirement is not a proper thing to be doing in the first place.
The Social Security System does need to be immediately addressed, and pushing the age limit up would help keep it funded, but there are other ways to do that and at some point it becomes manifestly unfair as well as a retardant on the economy. We already are enduring a gerontocracy in the US, and this would make it worse.
March 22, 2024
Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher is leaving the House of Representatives next month, dropping the GOP majority in the House down to one vote. Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene has filed a motion to remove Johnson, but it's a motion that doesn't have to be taken up.
The chances of the Republicans losing the House before November are now about 50/50, and with each example of Republican dysfunction, the corpse of the dead GOP starts to smell more and more. While nobody is yet predicting it (I'm about to), the Democrats will take the House and the Senate in the Fall.
March 23, 2024
The Senate passed the budget bill so the government will avoid shutting down, again. This just before they went home on recess, again.
Last prior edition:
119th Congress, Part 1.
Sunday, March 3, 2024
Wars and Rumors of War, 2024. Part 3. The Putin's Cheerleaders Edition.
February 13, 2024
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.
If your position is being cheered by Vladimir Putin, it’s time to reconsider your position.
Mitt Romney
Mitt Romney, whom I did not care much for as a Presidential candidate, has gone on to be an absolute hero in the Senate. It's tragic that he's leaving this year.
Equally tragic is that the once pro defense Republican Party has not only retreated into isolationism, it's gone into America First isolationism, last seen advanced by the likes of the Bund and Lindbergh just prior to World War Two.
February 15, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
The Ukrainians sank the Caesar Kunikov amphibious ship near Alupka with naval drones.
North Korea v. South Korea
North Korea announced that it will take a more aggressive approach to disputed waters near its border with South Korea.
Myanmar
Myanmar announced it will begin to commence its citizens, male and female, to fill a 60,000 man shortage.
February 17, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
Avdiivka has fallen to the Russians after months of fighting.
Severe ammunition shortages are becoming a factor in Ukraine, something that has set in since Republicans following Putin Fan Boy Donald Trump's views have held up aid.
Germany and France both signed bilateral security agreements with Ukraine on February 16.
Putin was bragging up the T-90
M'eh
And now the Russian Navy.
2011 Navalny designed poster about Putin's United Russia party, declaring it to be a "party of crooks and thieves".
Alexei Navalny became the latest Putin opponent in Russia, or outside of it, to die under mysterious circumstances. The 47-year-old politician reportedly collapsed in a penal colony, where he was serving a sentence for "extremism". Trump mouthpiece Lord Haw Haw Carlson excused the death in an interview.
February 18, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War.
A series of rising reactions to the failure of the US to provide ongoing aid to Ukraine is resulting in ramping pressure on the weak Leader of the House, Mike Johnson.
Johnson came into office declaring himself on a mission from God (literally) but so far he's pretty much been a puppet of Trump's, the strings being his extraordinarily weak position, one that is now even weaker as Santos was predictably replaced with a Democrat. Between the refusal to act on the border due to Trump and Ukraine, there's frankly a pretty good chance, in my view, that the Democrats might flip the House in the fall.
At any rate, we'd first note that Congress went on vacation without acting. President Zelenskyy commented that dictators did not go on vacation.
President Biden urged Congress to act.
Vice President Harris pledged US support.
National Review has an editorial aimed at Johnson urging he get off his duff and do something.
A bill in the House provides 47.7 billion for Ukraine, $10.4 billion for Israel, with has strong House report for some interesting reasons, $4.9 billion for the Indo Pacific, including Taiwan and $2.4 billion for supporting U.S. Central Command operations, including funding to offset efforts to deter Houthi
militant attacks in the Red Sea.
Matt Gaetz stated: ". . . I think that is a lot more significant to my constituents than which dude gets to run Crimea"
Presumably one of those things is getting conscripted when Poland and the Baltic States are invaded, which may well be coming, and fighting the first real toe to toe, peer to peer war, since World War Two.
About 400 Russians have been arrested for attending Navalny memorials.
Mexican Border Crisis
Democrats are also exploiting the GOP's Trump ordered failure to act on the border by exploiting the topic, which is now becoming an asset for them.
February 19, 2024
Hamas Israeli War
Israel set a deadline for the start of Ramadan in which it will invade Rafah if its hostages are not freed.
That would be March 10.
While seemingly missed, this may be a change in position towards a negotiated resolution of the conflict, as prior to this Israel has essentially taken the position that it will not be restrained, no matter what.
Papua New Guinea Tribal Warfare
53 people were killed in intertribal warfare on Papua.
February 20, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
I don’t like this reality. Vladimir Putin is an evil war criminal.Vladimir Putin will not lose this war.
Mike Johnson last week. Lindbergh said the same thing about Hitler.
Defecting Russian helicopter pilot Maxim Kuzminov was murdered in Spain.
Donald Trump posted that somehow the death of a Russian opposition leader who was put in a gulag by his Trump's buddy Putin, was sort of about him.
February 21, 2024
Hamas Israeli War
The US vetoed a cease fire resolution in the UN.
February 22, 2024
Trump in a Fox News interview stated, regarding nuclear war, the following:
I worry about their safety too. These people, everyone in this room is in great danger. We have a nuclear weapon that if you hit New York, South Carolina is gone
FWIW, and Trump is receiving criticism on this, the yield of a nuclear weapon is sufficient by a long measure to destroy South Carolina from a strike in New York. Prevailing wind patters, also, would not carry the fallout there.
Anyhow, I'm noting this here as a recent item on NPR's Politics discussed Trump's fear of nuclear war, which apparently is very pronounced.
I don't give Trump credit for deep thought s on very much. The Internet has allowed a lot of those in the shallow end of the pool to have voice as if they know what they're talking about, and frankly I'd include Trump in those in the shallow end of the pool. But apparently nuclear war is one thing he actually thinks about and has opinions on, and he's afraid of it.
That doesn't really surprise me too much.
Trump came of age in in the 1960s which was at a time that the fear of nuclear war was quite pronounced. It remained that way in the 1970s, and by the early 1980s I recall being forced to read A Republic Of Grass. which urged that we surrender to the Soviet Union, essentially, right then and there rather than face the prospect of nuclear war, which lefties were certain Ronald Reagan was going to get us into. I recall some on the right saying "there are worse things than death" in response to such things, which is harsh, but true.
But if your values end at yourself, maybe there aren't.
Russo Ukrainian War
Prominent Russian milblogger Andrei Morozov committed suicide after refusing Russian military command orders to delete his reports on high Russian casualty rates around Avdiivka.
Iranian sources told Reuters that the country provided hundreds of short-range ballistic missiles to Russia in early January.
That certainly helps Russia, but it also shows that industrially its a shadow of the former USSR.
Putin gave a car to the North Korean Communist Monarch.
February 23, 224
Houthi's
The Houthis on sent shippers and insurers a formal notice of a ban on vessels they deem linked to Israel, the U.S. and UK from sailing in waters bordering Yemen. They also declared they are going to use submarine weapons.
Russo Ukrainian War
NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that Ukraine has a right to use its Western-supplied weapons to defend itself against Russia, up to and including targeting sites within Russia.
February 24, 2024
Armenia is suspending its membership in Russia's Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).
February 25, 2024
Houthi's
The US and UK struck 18 Houthi targets yesterday.
Cont:
Russo Ukrainian War
In a speech marking the two-year point in the war, President Zylenskyy indicated 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have lost their lives so far, which is actually about half of what I previously saw estimated some time ago.
Two separate measures are being introduced to provide aid to Ukraine that go around Mike Johnson, who has proven to be a Trump flunkie.
King Charles praised President Zylenskyy for his countrymen exhibiting something that Johnson is not, that being courage.
Nigeria
Fifteen Catholics were murdered at Sunday Mass.
February 26, 2024
Hamas v. Israel
The PM of Israel made it clear that it is Israel's intent to enter Rafah no matter what. A ceasefire will merely delay that.
Russo Ukrainian War
Two separate discharge petitions to bring funding for Ukraine are being introduced into the House on different bills, one being the bill that has already passed the Senate. There seems to be optimism that one of them, that being the unique House bill in particular, will pass in this end run around politically castrated Trump eunuch, Mike Johnson.
ISW reports that there were more Russians casualties taking Avdiivka, 47,000, than in the entire Soviet Afghan War.
February 29, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
Russia has taken Stepove, seven miles northwest of Avdiivka. Ukrainian have pulled back from Stepove and the neighboring village of Sieverne.
Maybe the Russians will put up a monument to Mike Johnson there.
March 1, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
A Ukrainian missile strike killed 19 troops, injured 12 and Colonel Roman Kozhukhov, a respected commander in the occupied Donetsk in Ukraine. They were at a medal ceremony.
Donald Trump's Minister of Propaganda, Tucker "Lord Haw Haw" Carlson, stated that Donald Trump's object of affection, Vlad Putin, was stating something "dumb" when he justified the assault on Ukraine on the object of denazification.
China v. Taiwan
The PRC Coast Guard patrolled prohibited and restricted waters around Taiwan-controlled Kinmen.
Mexican Border Crisis
Both President Biden and would be president Trump were on the Mexican border yesterday.
March 2, 2024
Hamas v. Israel
The United States is going to air drop humanitarian relief into Gaza.
Russo Ukrainian War
Transnistria, breakaway sliver of Moldova, which itself is a Cyrillic using region of Romania that's a separate country as the Russians oppose Moldova uniting with Romania, asked Russia for "protection" from Moldova.
March 3, 2024
Houthis v. the West
A fertilizer ship hit days ago by the Houthis has sunk.
Russo Ukrainian War
For unknown reasons, North Korean munitions shipments to Russia appear to have stopped.
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