The Agrarian's Lament: The Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A reminder to that it is time to be the people that founded the country.

The Agrarian's Lament: The Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A reminder to that it i...:   The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument. : This blog was never intended to be political, but in the age of Donald...

The Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A reminder to that it is time to be the people that founded the country.

 

The Aerodrome: Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument.: This blog was never intended to be political, but in the age of Donald Trump, which will go down as the most corrupt political era in U.S. h...

On the 250ths Anniversary of American Independence it'd do us well to recall that while the Revolution may have been lead by landed patricians, it was fought by landed yeoman.

It's a great misfortune to the country, or perhaps a timely reminder, of exactly how far we've fallen in that regard. We have, in the form of Donald J. Trump, a President, albeit an illegitimate one, who is the very symbol of what Americans rebelled against 250 years ago. This monumental palace coach should serve to remind us. 

Had Donald Trump been alive in 1776, he'd have been a Loyalist. 

At the end of the war he'd have been packed up to Canada to annoy the French, who at least would largely have not understood him.  Not, in his dementia, that we do either.

Washington on Blueskin.

George Washington owned his own mounts.  John Adams broke one of his own mounts as late as his 80s.  Taft kept a cow on the White House lawn.

Donald Trump flies back and forth to his golf resort in Florida on the American taxpayers dime.¹  And now, at the expense of some $400,000,000 taxpayer dollars, he's unveiled the new one, and gushes about its "luxury":

Boeing VC-25B Bridge. A shameful flying monument.

This blog was never intended to be political, but in the age of Donald Trump, which will go down as the most corrupt political era in U.S. history, it just can't be avoided.

The Federal Government, funded by the American taxpayers in the form of taxes, and by individuals and foreign governments in the form of loans, has taken delivery of one Boeing "VC-25B Bridge", a military conversion of a Boeing 747-8 originally built as a Boeing Business Jet.  The plane was delivered in 2012 to Qatar Amiri Flight and used by the House of Thani. In June 2023, it was delivered to Global Jet Isle of Man. The Qatari government gave it as a gift. . . if we assume governments really give gifts to other governments.  Poor little King Donny just wasn't happy with the existing Air Force One and given that he's in his last term he couldn't wait for new ones under construction to be completed.

After he leaves office, which given his advanced age and rapidly declining mental status is likely to be before his term expires, the airplane, which has cost the United States at least $400,000,000 in "upgrades" to make it work in its role as a royal coach for his majesty, will be transferred to his presidential library foundation.  Indeed, that will happen before his unfortunate illegitimate reign is over.

This is complete bullshit.

I've posted on this story, and this airplane, here before:

Air Force One.

Air Force One has been in the news a lot recently, and it  started before the Qatari proposal to give the United States, or Donald Trump (it isn't clear which) a luxury outfitted Boeing 747.

Technically "Air Force One" is a call sign, and merely denotes an airplane the Chief Executive is a passenger in.  If a President rode in an Air Force Cessna, that would be Air Force One.  But everyone knows that it refers to one of two Boeing VC-25s, militarized 747s, that are designated for the Presidents use.

RD-2

Interestingly, the first aircraft designated for Presidential use was a Navy airplane, an amphibious Douglas Dolphin RD-2 that was luxury outfitted for use by President Roosevelt.  It was used from 1933 to 1939, and obviously not for transglobal flight.  The President didn't really do extensive travel until World War Two.

Roosevelt's once used VC-54C.

In spite of concerns over commercial aviation being used to carry the President during the war, it was in fact used and it wasn 't until 1945 that a new designated Presidential aircraft was acquired, that being a  Secret Service reconfigured a Douglas C-54 Skymaster (VC-54C) which was named the Sacred Cow.  It contained a sleeping area, radiotelephone, and retractable battery-powered elevator to lift Roosevelt in his wheelchair. It's only use by Roosevelt was to fly the then dying President to Yalta.  Truman used it thereafter, but it was replaced by military DC-6 (VC-118) thereafter.

Truman's VC-118.

President Eisenhower, who of course knew planes well, to Lockheed C-121 Constellations, Columbine II and Columbine III. The Constellation was a very popular airplane at the time, and Douglas MacArthur also had one, that one spending many years after its service at the Natrona County International Airport on an abandoned runway.

Columbine II was the first Presidential aircraft to receive the designation Air Force One.

At the end of Eisenhower's Presidency Boeing 707s came in, in part because the Soviets were using a jet to transport their Premier.  707s remained through the Nixon era, giving good service in this role.

747s, as VC-25s, entered specialized manufacture for use as Air Force One during Reagan's administration, although the first one would enter service after that.  They've been used ever since.

These aren't normal 747s.  They are packed with communications and electronic warfare equipment in order to have combat survivability.  

Replacing the current two aircraft that are used as Air Force One is a topic that the Air Force started looking at quite a few years ago.  The 747 variant which the VC-25 isn't made anymore.  Production of 747s stopped in 2023 in favor of more modern aircraft.  Still, the airframe remains useful in this role, and after the Air Force started to look into options, updating a 747-8 appeared to be the best option.  Only Boeing was interested in the project anyway, and it will take a massive financial loss to do it.  

The aircraft that are being retrofitted for this role was built, originally, as a commercial airliner. The projected is a massive one, and the delivery date will be in 2027.

What the new Air Force Ones will look like.

Enter Qatar.

Qatar has offered to give the US (I guess) a luxury Boeing 747-8 for use as Air Force One until the other 747-8s are complete.  But here's the thing.  Boeing has been working on the complicated task fo converting the two existing 747-8s for this use for several years. After all, it's basically a combat aircraft.  All accepting the plane would do is give Boeing a third one to convert, which wouldn't be ready for years.

Trump is being childish about this, as he is about a lot of things.  He doesn't seem to grasp the nature of the aircraft, and likely a lot of other people don't as well.  In his case, this is inexcusable.  It's a combat airplane.

Frankly, it's a Cold War combat airplane.

Which gets to this.

The 747 was a big massive airliner in an era in which it was the queen of the sky. That era is over and airlines have moved on to more modern aircraft.  The world in which Ronald Reagan ordered 747s is gone as well.  It's still useful to have an aircraft that can be used in a global thermonuclear war, which is what it is, but that's not going to happen and it makes no sense to use it to go on weekend golfing trips to Florida.

But that's what Trump tends to use it for.

That raises an entire series of other questions, many of which have little to do with aircraft, but some of which do.  It's notable that other Presidents have used lighter aircraft for more mundane trips.  In November 1999, President Bill Clinton flew from Ankara, Turkey, to Cengiz Topel Naval Air Station outside Izmit, Turkey, aboard a marked C-20C.  In 2000, President Clinton flew to Pakistan aboard an unmarked Gulfstream III.  In 2003, President George W. Bush flew in the co-pilot seat of a Sea Control Squadron Thirty-Five (VS-35) S-3B Viking from Naval Air Station North Island, California to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, with that latter obviously being an exception. Barack Obama used a Gulfstream C-37 variant on a personal trip in 2009.

Trump can use something else than a 747 for what he uses Air Force One for in almost every single instance.

Indeed, the entire topic brings up a lot of things about the risks of having an airplane like this, a luxury airliner inside, which is really a combat aircraft.  It makes it easy to forget what it really is, and it makes a President feel like an Emperor, which he is not.

So why am I doing it again?

Since May, 2025 Donald Trump has used the existing Air Force One to fly back and forth to his Florida golf home/resort, effectively using the airplane as a toy, repeatedly.  He's also used it for what are basically campaign trips.  He's launched an illegal war against Iran for which the Department of Defense now seeks $80,000,000,000 to cover, and which killed thirteen Americans and untold numbers of Iranians.  That war encouraged Israel to not only participate in it, or perhaps the other way around, but also to engage in an invasion of Lebanon.  He's spent something like $13,000,000 to Rhino Line the Washington D. C. reflecting pool, he's trying to build a massive ballroom that will ultimately cost the taxpayer one way or another, and he's trying to build a triumphal arch, making the United States the first country in the world to build an arch after getting solidly defeated in a war.

He's demented, and he acts like an emperor. This airplane is part of that delusion.

Truth be known, the entire Air Force One thing hasn't made sense for years.  Having some sort of aircraft available for Presidential use for Presidential work makes some limited sense. But most of what Trump uses the aircraft for could be achieved through commercial aviation.  Indeed, not one single trip Trump has taken could not have been accomplished that way.

And that's how this should be done.  Back when transpiration was by rail, the President didn't own a train.  When Trump goes over to the G7 to insult the Italian Prime Minister with his lunacy, that could be done by commercial air, and should be done that way.  And I mean commercial air, not chartered air.  The government could get him a ticket on a regularly scheduled flight.

And when he goes to Mar A Lago he can pay for his own ticket.

I know that the objections will be "oh my, it isn't safe".  That is, frankly, for the most part complete BS.  Trump could get a ticket on Ryan Air and be just as safe as anyone else. 

And if its a little less safe, that's a good thing.  One of the problems with the modern presidency is that the occupant of the White House is too insulated from the people he supposedly serves.  At one time the President shook the hands of all who lined up on New Years Day.  Not anymore.

If the President had to travel with the great unwashed masses maybe he'd be less of a lunatic.  Or maybe he'd just realize that its a real job.  

Anyway you look at it, Air Force One is a titanic waste of money.  The Air Force has aircraft.  If he needs to go, he can load up on a C5A with the equipment going wherever its going.  

And this waste of money is going to a Trump library just before Trump leaves office.

WTF?

If the US had to spend money on it, it should keep it.  This is appalling.  That should be addressed as soon as possible.  If there's a current way to address it, it just should be silently done.  Trump can leave office and his library, which frankly is a pointless thing in the first place, can buy a Revell model kit of a Boeing 747. This absurd flying castle can carry on in its existing role and join the two that are being built, or preferably at least one of those two contracts cancelled seeing as the US has this thing.

At that point, the signature on the under panel that Trump affixed yesterday can be fittingly modified, recalling World War Two nose art.  A realistic Trump nude torso doodle, a la Epstein, can be installed.  A fitting monument.

It's a gift form Qatar, an authoritarian, semi-constitutional hereditary emirate monarchy ruled by the House of Thani.  The Emir is the absolute authority.

Just the sort of government that King Donald can related to.  Apparently they could relate to him, or more likely, thought they could obtain some advantage by appealing to his pathetic vanity.

The plane will be transferred to his Presidential library before he leaves office.  What books would even appear in Donald Trump's library boggles the imagination.  He does not appear to be a well read man, or even really read anything.  Figures from his last administration related he had a hard time reading memos they gave him as he lost interest so rapidly.  He does not appear to be a smart man.²

And, current American worship of wealth aside, we shouldn't expect him to be.  What I've long suspected turns out to be true.  The wealthy are often stupid.

Does Being Rich Make You Stupid?

False consciousness goes upscale.

Billionaires Are Actually Less Intelligent Than Lower-Paid People New Study Shows

Does Having Too Much Money Make Us Stupid?

World’s Richest People May Actually Be Dumber Than Those Who Earn Less, Study Says

Luck and circumstance has plenty to do with it.

This actually doesn't surprise me at all.  The question is whether wealth makes you stupid, or encourages the breeding down of intelligence.  Either can be maintained.

It was Chesterton who noted that "AMONG the Very Rich you will never find a really generous man, even by accident. They may give their money away, but they will never give themselves away; they are egoistic, secretive, dry as old bones. To be smart enough to get all that money you must be dull enough to want it."  There's something to that.  But beyond that, there's plenty of evolutionary evidence of the latter point.  Wild cattle are quite a bit smarter than domestic ones.  Wolves are smarter than dogs.  Wild turkeys are very smart birds whereas domestic ones, apparently are dumb as a post.

Cave drawing of an Aurochs.  Modern cows can be dicey, but aurochs wanted to kill you.

The question would be, of course, why this is true, and selective breeding by human beings largely explains it.  We'd rather not have a mean cow that seeks to break free, raising a gang of mean cows, and lay siege to the village.  Hunters and herdsmen like smart dogs, but bred to be fairly compliant. If you've ever owned a standard poodle, one of the oldest hunting breeds, you'll see how much of the wolf wasn't bread out of them, they think for themselves, we've worked a lot on dogs since then.  

French Poodle in the early 1900s. The coat may look weird but they're a hunting dog, and a German bred one.  Even now, the Puddle Dog has opinions on everything and isn't shy about giving you them. The only other modern hunting dog that rivals them that way is the Chesapeake Bay Retriever, another old breed..

It's a dangerous thing to say, and contrary to the thesis advanced by eugenicists, but there's pretty good evidence that people on average were getting smarter and smarter all along throughout human history, in very real terms, up until just recently.  Evolution was forcing it.  Some evolutionary biologist argue that the homo sapien sapien of our current era is demonstrably smarter than homo sapiens of, say, 100,000 years ago. . . or 50,000 years ago. . . or 10,000 years ago, or 5,000.³   And it makes some sense.

In a normal, i.e., not rich, environment a lot of things go into mate selection, oh heck let's say spouse selection other than what goes into attracting people, oh heck let's say men, to Only Fans.  Love has always been an aspect of it, but its interesting to note how even when I was a teen, teenagers selected dates on character, which included intelligence, more than anything else.  It's funny to think of now, but if a guy had a "pretty" girlfriend, he was just considered lucky, and a girl with brains and other positive characteristics would have a boyfriend who featured the same, irrespective of her looks. When the girl was good looking, it was just sort of like winning a bonus prize.  Purely good looking girls, if that's all they had going for them, weren't really sought out.  

  Two young couples.  Migrant farm workers in Louisiana and their children, 1939.

This remained true, I'd note, throughout my entire single life.  Maybe it's largely true now.

But with the wealthy, it's another matter.

Future Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith and her first husband, Billy Ray Smith.  She was 17  and he was 16 when she married.  He was cook.  She changed her image enormously after they divorced and ended up married to an octogenarian after being a Playboy Centerfold and Guess Jeans model. Do we think that late union was a marriage for love on either side?  She paid the price, of course, dying young.  Her first husband is still alive, but never speaks much.  He was apparently crushed by the death of their son, pictured here, when he was in his twenties.  He never remarried.

Donald Trump, who gives no evidence of being an intelligent man, has been married three times, with each spouse having a certain sort of look save for one.  Two have been Slavic beauties of a certain sort, which means they present a certain look that certain people regard as glamorous beauty.⁴. The second, Marla Maples, actually presents as pretty smart. That marriage lasted six years.⁵

The point here?

I'm not thinking that a lot of the super rich determine their mates the way regular people do.  I don't think "is he/she a good helpmate?" or "do we have the same interests, faiths, worldview?", or to be really old school, "can this guy/gal help me around the farm?" has gone into it much.  Rather, they often seem to be chosen on looser characteristics that might more resemble how oriental potentates chose concubines for the harem, i.e., looks.

When Arab raiders stole Irish women, after all, smart as those women tend to be, they weren't marketing them on "look at this ginger. . . she's really got the brains!"

Now, a person can take this too far, but we live in a rich society.  The richest of us may in fact be stupider than the rest of us, or a lot of us.  And we collectively, just like a placid cow in the field, may be starting to get dumber overall.

We live in a materially very wealthy culture.  Even the average impoverished American is wealthier than many thought to be well off in former eras. And to add to that, the decay in morality, brought about by material wealth, which has allowed us to focus only on ourselves, has developed a self centered sexual culture that contributes to this.

Put another way, as one female observer seriously noted:

But its not making people happier.  People know something is wrong.

Gallup informs us that most Americans believe in the "American Dream", whatever that is, but that a very high percentage believe its unobtainable.

American Dream Endures as U.S. Approaches 250 Years

That's because it is unobtainable.

The American Dream has been defined in various ways.  I think it might be best defined in the film The Best Years Of Our Lives.

In that film there's a moment when discharged sergeant Fred Derry gives a loan to a discharged Navy vet who is a tenant farmer.  He wants to buy his own farm.  He knows he can do it.

That's the best description of the American Dream I've ever seen.

The real dream is to own your own.  And at the time of the American Revolution, most did. That's what had brought them to the country.

I don't know what they teach the young now, but when I was growing up it was a lot of crap about how people came over for freedom, mostly freedom of religion.

Yeah, some did, sort of. The best example might be the Puritans on the Mayflower, who were seeking freedom to worship in their own way and to tell everyone else in the world how they were supposed to do it.  If you were in a Puritan community you were worshipping with them or getting punished, severely.

Only about 1/3d of the Mayflower passengers were Puritans.  The rest were likely members of the Church of England which itself was less than 100 years separated from the Catholic Church, and even less separated from the Prayer Book Rebellion.⁶ Point is, those passengers, who were all part of the group that put in as they were out of beer, didn't come for religious freedom.

They came for land.

Land is, and was, independent.  People knew then, and they knew now, that land was independence, freedom, and a decent life worth living.  If you could obtain, as Chesterton would later put it, "three acres and a cow", or more likely 40, and a mule, you had it made.  You were not rich.  You were not poor. You were your own family.

Land is what caused Englishmen to risk their lives in 1607 to come to a new continent, or Frenchmen to come to it in 1608, or Spanish to come to it in 1565.  Here they could get it, at some cost, but a none the less obtainable one.  In Europe, they could not.  And if not all came as farmers, tradesmen who came, came because they could open their own shops, essentially operating on the same ideal.  Those who couldn't muster up the cash for transit indentured themselves to do so which, in spite of latter day white apologist, was not slavery.  It was a temporary means of getting started, in some ways like apprenticeships or joining the service operates for many today.

We cannot say that it was universally benign. That would be a lie. The land in fact already belonged to somebody else, the native inhabitants, whose claims were excused due to their rotational agricultural practices and low population density. But that doesn't change the basic fact.  It was land, not "freedom" of any type that drew the immigrant.

By moving, they freed themselves from some landowning overlord and made themselves independent farmers.  That dream lasted all the way up until the mid 20th Century in some fashion.  While it remains alive today, the truth is that the reality it of it is as dead, yielded to the bloated interests of the rich.  The largest landowner in the US today is billionaire sports and real estate mogul Stan Kroenke, who owns land in Wyoming.  Mom and pop shops have yielded to the nightmare created by Sam Walton.  

People who think the American dream is alive are largely fooling themselves.

Nonetheless, a dream is a dream, and revolutions are based on dreams.

The American Revolution was based on a landowning dream.  It wasn't, frankly necessarily wholly admirable.  The Intolerable Acts included, in a very real sense, the sense that the Crown was going to restrict the right of expanding countrymen's families to settle new lands, and they were right. The fear also was that the Crown would restrict economic activity in the Colonies for revenue purposes, and that was partially correct.  Common Sense and the like aside, a real cause of the Revolution was the native sense that the free right to settle land, and engage in small free enterprise, was the only thing that separated American Colonist form the English and European masses.

They were right, if not necessarily morally right.

A large number, maybe most, revolutions since that time, and some before it, have been based on the same cause. The French Revolution was not, and it remains a global oddball.  The Russian Revolution, failed as it was, is such an example, however, as was the Russian Revolution of 1905.  The Chinese Revolution of 1911, and the Chinese Civil War, both failed examples, also were.  The Mexican Revolution, also a failed revolution, very much was.

The Mexican Revolution provides, in fact, an excellent example.  Through every phase, from 1911 onwards, the rich landed class fought back, and when defeat arrived, they stepped aside and regrouped.  It kept the Revolution from really being successful.  Indeed, of all the revolutions we have noted, only the American Revolution was really successful.

But the success it created is dead.  Today,. we have the Donald Trumps and Elon Musks and other 1%ers that control the economy, and which some like Jonah Goldberg even feel we should celebrate (as to Musk).

Well, no.

Time for a second American revolution.

Not, we might note, one with guns.  Indeed, that would inevitably be not only immoral, but outright moronic, lead by people festooned with Second Amendment tattoos while advocating outright fascism.

No, something more radical than that, a revolution at the ballot box.

It's time to end the moronic celebration of a "free market system" that isn't free in any sense.  Corporate Capitalist are shoving pablum down the throats of the electorate while pocking the largess. Large-scale corporatism needs to end.

And so too does a weird millennialism appropriations of public lands by people like Deseret Mike Lee and pathetic fellow travelers like John Barrasso and Harriet Hageman.

A revolution can be had at the ballot box.  It won't happen all at once, but if started now the two party system can be ended, and the creation of wealth for the wealthy can be as well.  Remote land ownership, something the colonist came here to escape, can be as well.

It won't happen as long as people don't think.  But they need to think now.  At some point they will, and if we don't take on the yoke of this burden now, when the plow ox bulks, it'll be bad.

Footnotes

1.  Donald Trump is such a WASP, with the adherence to the "P", that he's converted some property in Washington D.C. to become a golf course and is putting in courses on some military bases.

Put in shooting ranges or something.  Not something that fat old white guys play.

2. The fact that Trump is a Wharton graduate is really a slam at the Ivy League. Yes, they have some great schools, but the system they operate in really has graduated some failures.  Pete Hegseth provides such an example.  

Wharton owes the country an apology, and I say that as somebody who has a relative that graduated from there. The fact that Trump graduated is applying. The fact that Chuck Gray is their product is as well.

3.  Some theologians have speculated that there was a point with our species when God converted us from just a smart hominid into what we are in the Divine Plan, with an immortal soul. The speculation is that it was the moment language arrived, and there's some archeological and biological evidence that moment was in fact sudden and radical.  

4. Frankly, Trump spouses 1 and 3 really aren't bombshells.  Melania is more properly characterized as "handsome".

5.  We can't really speculate on the smarts of 1 and particularly 3.  Melania is hard to figure as she's never obtained a really good command of English.  None the less, people who admire her, are frankly doing so willfully.

6. Recusant Catholics are estimated to be less than 5% of the English population at the time, which means that were likely to probably have actually been 10 to 15%.  Today, more Catholics attend weekly services in the UK than the established church.  Recently one Anglican convert in the UK described her transition as "going Full Fat Catholicism"

The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 3. The Confederate Legislature Edition.

 

February 9, 2026.

The 2026 Wyoming legislature commences today. 

It'll be the first one controlled by the Confederate Carpetbagger Caucus and therefore the first Wyoming legislature ever that doesn't have a strong element of moderation built into it.  The carpetbaggers of the WFC captured it, backed in no small part by riding the Trump wave, the collapse of the stability of the oil and gas industry (which was never all that stable) and oddly enough a series of warm winters that would have sent a lot of these people back to where they were from.  Instead, they stayed and brought their Dixiecrat disgruntlement into the state.

It seems that people are actually starting to wake up to them in numbers for the first time. They're gutting UW, education, and local governments, as people living in 1930s Alabama don't need none o' that stuff.  They've brought in with them a certain American sort of far right Evangelical view as well, something extremely foreign to the state.  And they're backed by money from out of state, one of which sends around Instagram messages as "Honor Wyoming" but which does anything but.  

Wyomingites who thought the WFC were just conservative have been shocked to find that ain't so.

The thing is, it might be too late.  Or it might not be.  They have the numbers not to do a lot of things, but they don't have the numbers to override vetoes.

This is a budget session, so it should only have 20 working days.  That hasn't stopped legislators from trying to introduce all sorts of things in the past, and it won't this year.  Here' are the prefiled bills:

2026 Wyoming Legislation.*

There are a lot of weird laws in this pack, but I'm just going to start off with this WFC one.  HB 01119 would ban the use of "foreign law" in Wyoming, and under its own terms, accidentally wipe out the complete body of civil law in the state, which specifically was adopted as being English Common Law.

This is an example of the sort of ignorant paranoia on the far right that preserved abortion in Wyoming.

Cont:  

The Governor and Chief Justice spoke.

Senate File 51, allowing for transferable landowner tags, a terrible wildlife privatization concept, died on introduction.

The Confederate Caucus revealed its agenda.

Wyoming Freedom Caucus Unveils 2026 Agenda Outside Wyoming Capitol

Prohibiting infanticide, I'd note, is something I agree with, but it's the far right's fault that it was preserved in Wyoming, which they need to wake up to.

Footnotes:

*In past years I ran the table of bills and much of the text of various bills on the trailing thread for that  year's legislature.  It made for lots of threads that grew really long.

That's hard to slog through, so this year I'm trying something different and putting that stuff on a seperate page.  It's up as a link now, but it'll likely go down as a link, although still be possible to bring up from the threads, when the 2026 Legislature is thankfully over.

February 10, 2025

The Confederate Caucus isn't starting off with much success. Wyoming voters apparently have awakened about them and their representation is taking note.

Six Of Seven Election Reform Bills Killed On Monday, Freedom Caucus Not Happy

School funding bill dies in Wyoming House: The Legislature is constitutionally required to undergo so-called ‘recalibration.’ The bill, drafted in the legislative off season, was unpopular among educators.

Wyoming House Kills Bill To Change How Schools Get Money, Senate Could Save It

The Confederates went to their playbook and blamed "liberal Republicans", which really don't exist in Wyoming's legislature.

Some other stupid bills died as well, including the paranoid geoengineering bill and a constitutional amendment on property tax valuation.

The Business Council seems to have survived.

It's a budget session, we need to keep in mind, so 2/3s of a body is needed to introduce a bill. 

Lawmakers kill dozens of bills on budget session’s first day

More data here:

2026 Wyoming Legislation.*

February 11, 2026

Gordon: It's Refreshing To See So Many Bills Die Because It's A Budget Session, After All

It is, although it does point out the need to end the WFC's chapter in Wyoming politics, as next year may well be different.

Wyoming Freedom Caucus calls foul on committee bill decimation: In a blow to the Republican group’s majority bloc, 21 committee bills failed introduction on Monday in the House— more than twice the number the caucus killed in the last budget session, when it was in the minority.

Funny, the Confederate Caucus was just beginning to make a stumbling effort to counter the growing "you're batshit crazy" movement countering them with "it's democracy", dragging out Cassie Cravens to with some potted meat, when now they're crying foul about how democracy works. 

Amongst the WFC's members, a fellow in the news a lot recently had a bad result.

Allemand-sponsored nuclear waste bill fails Wyoming House introduction

And this:

Wyoming House Kills Bill To Make Counties Pay Costs For Self-Defense Acquittals

And this is interesting:

Guest Column: The Hidden Price of Tax Relief — What Every Wyoming Citizen Should Know

It's interesting in part as Steinmetz, the author, is an "ally" of the WFC, and she's breaking ranks.

I will say the "hidden" aspect of this is complete crap.  Anyone who paid attention, including anyone in the WFC who was following, knew that this would gut local entities like a fish. For the most part, they simply didn't care.

Indeed, the carpetbagger element of this is really strong here.  WFC supporters include a fair amount of carpetbaggers who moved in here from other state, bought property at inflated values, and don't want to be taxed. They really don't care if towns and cities don't have services or if kids aren't educated. They raised their kids elsewhere and, American style, abandoned them somewhere else.  They're happy to sit i in their McMansions in a town with no local services as they're old and they aren't going to use them.

But now legislators are hearing from people who are from here, and who want a police department, a fire department, decent towns, and to educate their kids.  

February 13, 2026

Wyoming lawmakers will investigate checks activist gave to legislators on House floor: The incident in question occurred Monday night when Rebecca Bextel of Jackson handed out campaign donation checks. The House voted unanimously in support of the investigation.

 Change to Wyoming law to recognize legality of corner crossing clears early hurdles: Although it’s been smooth sailing so far, the measure still has “98 yards to go” in the legislative process and faces opposition from influential parties.

 Bill to put abortion-related question to voters fails Senate introduction: The measure would have asked voters to amend the Wyoming Constitution so the Legislature can define health care. It comes on the heels of a Wyoming Supreme Court decision striking down state abortion bans.

On the last item, the ghost of the constitutional amendment regarding "health care" now appears in the legislature, which provided the reason that some Republicans voted against the bill. 

February 14, 2026, Valentine's Day.

Wyoming Freedom Caucus in Cheyenne.

Well, the first week of the legislature is over and it proved to be an interesting, and surprising, one.

The Confederate Carpetbagger Caucus went into the session with its orders from out of state interests and extreme right wing agenda and ran right into, well, Wyomingites.

It also ran into its own ignorance.

Full of piss and vinegar, the collection of carpetbaggers and carpetbagger drones simply figured it had the numbers and it was going to return the state to November 11, 1620.  It forgot, apparently, that in a budget session it needs a supermajority to introduce legislation, and while it may have the majority, it doesn't have that.

It was also taken off guard by a sudden rise in attention to it by regular people from the state, which now that they are more informed, are starting to organize against it.  They haven't been able to get back on their feet from that, with perhaps the most pathetic response being Cassie Craven's "but don't you still love us?".

We never did.

All this is bad news for the WFC as it may have shot its bolt.  Candidates are starting to come out to take them on, as evidenced by the Mayor of Bar Nunn coming out against Freedom Caucuser Bill Allemand.

And the exposing of their money supply hasn't been a good thing for any of them, even though those who were watching them carefully knew about it all along.  Likewise, that they were fed canned legislation was well known, but it was not known that they were basically fed instructions on what to do.

Amongst those whom its not good news for is Chuck Gray, who turned the state's voters roles over to his beloved, Donald Trump, because Donny asked for them.  Gray adores Trump like a teenage bride adores her husband and is making that the gist of his campaign, Trump Love, but he's responsible for a bunch of WFC voting bills that went down in flames.  He's running for the House against Jillian Balow, Reid Ransner and David Giralt.  I suspect that this sort of thing really starts to boost Balow.  Gray is really detested by a lot of people to start with, and Giralt to unknown.  Rasner is a gadfly.  Gray's term as Secretary of State end in January, 2027 and if he doesn't secure the House his political career in the state is at an end.

Amongst the bill casualties so far has been the bill on abortion.  This also signifies, fwie, a return of Wyoming politics to the middle.  I'm opposed to abortion so I would like to have seen that bill advance, but it's the case that for eons Wyoming Republicans opposed abortion more or less, but wouldn't act to make it illegal. The first time that the legislature ever passed anything doing that was right after Dodds, and that's the statute, or statutes, that died in court.  It was killed there by an amendment to the constitution that was designed to protect individual health care decisions from the fantasy of AHCA death panes, and it became a death panel itself.  So effectively the state returns to the status quo ante on abortion, thanks to the GOP in the first place.

So we'll see what next week brings.

February 15, 2026

And, finishing up this past week:

Laramie County sheriff launches criminal investigation into Wyoming Legislature check controversy: The inquiry will examine whether campaign donation checks distributed to lawmakers amount to bribery.

Sheriff Investigating Check Passing Scandal In Wyoming Legislature

I suppose it shouldn't surprise anyone too much to learn that Bextel, the check giver, is from Alabama, although she lived in Guatemala as a Protestant missionary, that part of the world having Protestant missions that seek to convert people who are already Christians.  She's been in Wyoming about twenty years.

It'll probably turn out not to be criminal, but the act of giving out checks on the floor was monumentally dumb, as was the act of receiving them that way.

Cheyenne Roundup 2026: Episode 2 | Checkgate, dead bills and the start of the session: Bills are flying and dying in the Wyoming Legislature’s budget session. And lawmakers haven’t even touched the budget itself yet.

Related threads:

In Full Debate On University of Wyoming Budget Cuts, Lawmakers Ask If It's Retaliation The Wyoming House and Senate debated a $40 million cut to the University of Wyoming on Thursday, with the budget committee co-chair John Bear confirming the number was meant to "get their attention." He said legislative directives on DEI were ignored.

Guest Column: Proud Of Wyoming And UW – And If You Take Time To Learn, I Bet You Will Be Too Guest columnist Marilyn Kite writes, "Most Wyoming citizens are proud of our state. But today, we hear attacks. Where all these attacks are coming from is a puzzle, but they are likely driven by out of state forces that know little about our history and public assets."

Tom Lubnau: Puppets, Phones, and Power — Inside Wyoming’s Shadow Legislature Columnist Tom Lubnau writes, "We know money changed hands – on the house floor. And during floor debate, you can routinely watch legislators read directly from their phones. We do not know who is scripting the debate."

Donor: Two checks given to Bextel were intended for pair of Wyoming Legislature’s most powerful lawmakers

Last edition:

The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 2. Pre Legislative Committee Edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Economics, Education, Ignorance, Mark Gordon, National Public Radio, Radio, Sports, Taxes, Tom Lubnau, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

Monday August 1, 1921. Looking at the 300th Anniversary of the founding of Plymouth, MA, from the prospective of the 400th

On this day in 1921, President Harding addressed a crowd at Plymouth, Massachusetts, in celebration of the 300th anniversary of the founding of an English colony there.  Why they regarded the founding as 1621 in 1921, and we regard it as 1620 in 2021, isn't really clear to me.

At any rate, apparently this year there's been trouble actually figuring out how to celebrate the anniversary, with COVID 19 playing a definite role in that.  Celebrations planned last year were pushed into this year, and a news story indicates they're still up in the air.

A 400th anniversary only comes about once, of course, so something ought to be done to mark the event, although the big shadow that hangs over it is the reassessment of the country's early history and its association with colonization, imperialism, and race.  This started prior to 2021 with the New York Times releasing its 1620 Project, which has been controversial, and under the Trump Administration sparked the 1776 Project, which in turn was immediately terminated following the election of President Biden.  Nonetheless, this may be an event which the dampening impact of SARS-CoV-2 which is oddly a good thing in some ways, although the disease and pandemic certainly are not.

On the same day, President Harding informed Congress that the US was obligated to loan $5,000,000 to Liberia under an agreement reached in September, 1918.  The loan itself had come about in the context of World War One, and was part of an inducement for the Liberian declaration of war against Germany.  Germany had constituted 75% of Liberian trade prior to the war.

It was the first flight for the Curtis CR-1, a racing airplane designed for the U.S. Navy.

A grand total of four were built.

If it seems odd that a racing plane was built for the navy, racing aircraft were a major feature of fighter, or as they were then called "pursuit" aircraft development between the wars. Even the Supermarine Spitfire was developed from a racer.

The relationship between the CR-1 and the Curtis Hawk series of biplane fighters is obvious.

Curtis P-6.

I've always thought the P-6 was one of the most beautiful biplanes every built.

In Spain, riots broke out and troops mutinied over recent Spanish defeats in Morocco. At this point, in fact, Spanish Morocco was in control of the Rifian government, save for a small portion still held by the Spanish.