The 2026 Election, 19th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part three.

Robert M. Carey, left, Robert D. Carey, right.  Robert M. Carey was a lawyer, rancher, judge, and Congressman, Senator and Governor of Wyoming who received the Democratic nomination for the office in 1910 after determining to leave the Republican Party in order to defeat its machine.  He followed Theodore Roosevelt into the Progressive Party and never returned to the GOP.  Robert D. Carey was his son was a Converse County banker and rancher who was part of the Progressive Party National Committee from 1917 to 1918 and who was elected to the position of Governor as a Republican in 1918.  He later served a single term as U.S. Senator from Wyoming.  Both men are proof who don't have to be a lockstep sycophant to be an effective politician.

Less than one week to go until the primary, which unless something bizarre happens, Trump defects to Russia taking Chuck Gray with him. . . Hageman and Degenfelder join the CPUA. . ., that will be the election for a lot of positions.

Although maybe not quite all.

As earlier noted, I've already cast my vote.  And honestly, in spite of the really disappointing overall choices at the statewide level, there were a few really good candidates.  

I voted for:

Governor:  Barlow.

Senate:  Mead

House of Representatives:  Christensen.

Secretary of State:  Short.

Superintendent of Public Instruction: Harshman

Everyone of these candidates was somebody you could really get behind.

There are others.  I'd note, more locally, Campbell for the House as well as Jarvis. And Engebretsen for the Senate.

And then there are a collection that really need to be sent packing.  Ide, Bear, Allemand, for example.  For that matter, Rasner, Gray, Friess and Hageman need to be retired from politics by the electorate.

We have, we note, only discussed the GOP candidates for the most part.  The GOP, now, is practically two parties in and of itself.  There's the Republican Party, and then there's the Calvinist Theocratic Party, the WFC.  They could not be more different.  One is a conservative party and the other a Protestant Christofascist party.  That sounds extreme, but unfortunately, it's true.

We haven't discussed the Democrats hardly at all, and for the most part, they stand no chance.  There are some exceptions.  Provenza in Albany County will go back into the legislature, for example. But there are a few others worth noting.  James Byrd, who is running for the U.S. Senate, is one.  If Mead doesn't win, Byrd may give Harriet Hageman a real run as on Wyoming issues, he's a better candidate.  I think Mead would beat him as Mead is a good candidate.  If Hageman defeates Mead, and then defeats Byrid, it will be simply because a fair number of people right now would vote for Josef Mengele if ran as a Republican.

The race for Superintendent of Education features two good Democrats, Ana Cordova and Sergio Maldonado.  Again, in a normal functioning democracy, either one would be a good contender in the general election. Probably neither stands a chance this year, but if Harshman does not win the primary, the race will at least be interesting.

August 12, 2026

A Freedom Caucus member:

Felony intimidation is not Rep. Gary Brown’s only conviction. He pleaded guilty to harassment in 2013.

And the far right in the state arguing with itself:

U.S. House Candidate Reid Rasner Calls For Defeat Of "Freedom Caucus Losers"

This whole thing is sort of inside baseball.  In terms of outright goofball positions Rasner is every bit as far right as anyone in the WFC.  Distinguishing their positions from his own is impossible, as they're the same.

Gray, however, unpacked the Freedom Caucus from his carpetbag and is one of the founding members of the populist movement in the state, which figures, as he isn't from the state, like almost all of its major members.  In endorsing Gray, they endorsed one of their own.  They couldn't have not endorsed him as that would have caused a major rift in the organization and would really have been unthinkable.

And Rasner has always been the odd man out in other ways, one being that he's an acknowledged homosexual, even if he's not noisy about it in any fashion.  He is noisy about almost everything else.

The WFC defended Gray and attacked Rasner in its response;

Reid Rasner is a failed career candidate who has brought division, dysfunction and political games to our state.  Wyoming deserves strong conservative, like Chuck Gray.

Calling Gray "strong" is really rich.  He's a whiny little weenie who likes to call people names.  And more than that, really.

Gray is noisy, but Wyomingites know almost nothing about him whatsoever.  Rasner has a much more open history, including having once run for a municipal position in Las Vegas and having been in a same sex legal union ending in divorce.  We know Gray is from Los Angeles originally, went to Wharton, and then moved to Casper to work at his daddy's radio station, where he had a vitriolic radio show.  His personal history is a complete mystery.  He's not only not known to have a love interest, he's not even known to have a like interest.

And then there's Bo Biteman.

Biteman was regarded as fully WFC in the last legislature.  WFC members, save for some of the core members, can usually disavow their membership when convenient as they keep no formal records of whose in and out.  Biteman said, according to the article;

The Freedom Caucus brings plenty of noise, I’ve ignored them when they’ve attacked me, I’ve ignored them when they’ve taken credit for work I helped lead, and I’m going to keep ignoring the distractions.

Well, suck it Bo.  You are WFC and simply pretending you aren't hasn't kept people from knowing that.  

David Giralt, whose positions seem to be about as far right as Gray's, Friess' and Rasner's, but who is more soft spoken about them, also threw rocks at the WFC, accusing them of  “very aggressive culture war tactics that, at the end of the day I think, just work against what the legislative process should be: holding true to your political ideological convictions and then working to get things done.”

What a joke.  Giralt may be a nice guy, but being a nice guy and a veteran doesn't excuse having the same set of positions as the WFC, as far as we can tell.

Friess took a page out of the national playbook, arguing that Republicans “fight the real enemy, the radical left AOC/ Mandami Socialists.”

M'eh.   

Balow, at least, was honest, endorsing their views, but noting that they're a bit nasty in pursuing them.  Her endorsement of their weltanschauung is part of the reason why we abandoned her in favor of Christensen.  Christensen, for his part, noted how ideologically driven the WFC is and how that had a detrimental impact on the 2026 Legislature.

The fact that members of the populist hard right, both going down in flaming defeat in next week's primary, are now throwing rocks at the WFC is really remarkable.  The WFC has always been downright nasty and full of hypocrisy, and they may now being getting ready to take on water.  This is a good time to get off the ship.

Overall, however, this is a really interesting development.  As campaigns begin to fail, and Biteman's, Rasner and Giralt's are failures, with Rasner's being a career ending failure, people are starting to be a more honest about things.  Frank Campman, freed of tight fitting cowboy boots that look like he got them in the children's department, and his Woody's Roundup cowboy hat, move way to the center almost immediately after he dropped out of the race.  Rasner just recently exposed Chuck Gray's campaign manager, Gabe Saint, who was terminated from his intern position with Harriet Hageman due to the Francoist websites he'd been following, which is unfortunately a story that didn't go anywhere because Rasner is such a gadfly and had his own hosts of absurd extreme reels, such as promising to prevent Sharia Law from entering the state.

So, the far right Carpetbagger Caucus Revolution is in trouble and its outliers, those who were always a bit careful about it, and those whom it wouldn't let in the door, are now attacking it.  It hasn't seen that happen before.

There were some primaries across the country yesterday.

An amusing one is Mike Lindell, the "My Pillow" guy, going down in flaming defeat.  Lindell comes across as not particularly smart, which puts him in the MAGA Not Particularly Smart Branch of that movement.  Lindell has endorsed every wack job conspiratorial theory on Trump's 2020 election defeat that Trump has put out, and even was monkeying around with Wyoming's vote that election which was for Trump.  Lindell recently left his company to run for Governor of Minnesota.

Lindell had no chance of winning the primary as only the stupid and ignorant would vote for him.  That's what happened.  He's not accepting that however, claiming, in true Trump/MAGA style that there were "irregularities".

Lisa Demuth won the race with 43.4% of the vote.  Lindell did bring in 32.5% of the vote, which some have been shocked by.  One person asked if his supporters were stupid. 

Well, probably a lot of them are.

Let's be honest about stupidity, as the country has a real stupidity problem right now.

The United States has always had a strong anti intellectual streak, which endorsed the native intelligence of the common man. Frankly, it's been one of the problems the country's always been afflicted with. But at the same time, up until now, there's never been an era in which education was despised. Right now, we're seeing a lot of that. The reason is fairly simple. The really intelligent, through technology, have made it possible for the stupid to have a voice.

Which brings us to the bell curve.

Human intelligence it not really very well understood, even today.  Perhaps in some ways we don't know that much more about it than we ever did.  Btu what we do know is that in an average population, there's a mean.  Half the people are above it, and half below it.

More than that most of the people are somewhere on the middle part of the curve.  But if you divide it into thirds, 1/3d of it is considerably above the rest in terms of intelligence, and 1/3 considerably below.  Like Larry David's skit lampoons, we let the bottom third vote.

Therefore, it'd be somewhat fair to say that Lindell's 1/3d of the Minnesota vote represents "the stupid ones", and to some extent, it actually does.  While some of low intelligence would have voted for other candidates, Trump uniquely appeals to stupid.

He also uniquely appeals to the ignorant, which is not the same.  And that's where the story of intelligence gets complicated, particularly in voting.  I have a friend, for example, whose highly intelligent, but completely disinterested in politics.  He still votes.  A lot of rural people I know are big Trump supporters, not because they're dumb, but because they listen to their neighbors and they've all collectively bought off on BS Trump conspiracy theories.  As part of that, however, I'll note, that they're mostly poorly educated.

Anyhow, take the dumb, the ignorant, and the poorly educated together, you probably have at least 33% of the population.  Technology makes the difference.  In prior eras, those people were influenced by the smarter and the well educated around them.  Now, they're influenced by themselves.

Amy Klobuchar, who have (and still would) make a good President, won the Minnesota Democratic nomination. She's going to be Minnesota's next Governor.

In the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, Democrat David Crowley narrowly beat Democratic Socialist Rep. Francesca Hong.

This was a failure in the polls, by the way, as Hong was heavily favored in polls to win.

Whether they should be or not, Democrats are probably breathing a sign if relief over that, but they probably should actually be taking stock on what's really going on.  It's being interpreted as the party base going to the radical left, but in reality Democratic Socialism is simply the smarter kid brother of MAGA. I.e., it's populism wearing the educated team jersey rather than the Kelly's bar and grill jersey.  There was always a really strong chance that MAGA's today would be rooting for Bernie Sanders tomorrow, and its starting to happen.  And frankly some of the Democratic Socialist platform, like universal healthcare, are ideas that have not only arrived, they arrived and should have been adopted 80 years ago.  In other words, as we've said before, the rise of Democratic Socialism isn't necessarily a bad thing, but both the Democrats and the GOP need to find a way to steal its popular platforms.

In a sane political system, it'd be really easy for the American Solidarity Party to enter right here, but unfortunately we lack that.

Trump backed Tom Tiffany, a Freedom Caucus member, won the GOP nomination. 

The Republicans hold the legislature in Wisconsin, the Democrats the Governor's office.  My predictions is that the Democrats retain the Governor's office and gain the Senate there.

Showing the emerging trend, in Connecticut 78 year old Democratic Rep. John Larson went down in defeat to 47 year old Luke Bronin, the former Hartford mayor and a former Navy intelligence officer.  The Democrats are booting out the boomers. 

About time.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez was on This Week as the Press is treating her as the national leader of the Progressives and the Democratic Socialists.  I really think that this is wholly in error, although she was a very early member of a Democratic Socialist chapter to be elected to Congress.* There's a lot of things I disagree with Ocasio Cortez politically, including her support of abortion, but her analysis on the state o things in these elections, which came before yesterday's' primaries, was astute.  She noted that Millennials are mad, and are implicitly mad at the Baby Boomers.  They are, and they aren't the only ones.  Generations Jones and Generation X are also really angry with the Boomers, even though the Boomers seem wholly clueless about this.

Going back to Minnesota, progressive, but not Democratic Socialist, candidate Peggy Flanagan defeated a centrist Rep. Angie Craig for the Democratic Senatorial primary.  She'll now face Republican winner  Michele Tafoya, a former National Football League sideline reporter.

Flanigan is a Native American.

The seat is presently held by Democrat Tina Smith.  Flanigan is likely to win it.

cont:  

From the Governor:

OP ED by Governor Mark Gordon: Wyoming Doesn’t Need More Mud Slinging

August 12, 2026

My friend and erstwhile opponent in the 2018 Primary for Governor approached me a few days before election day and said, “Mark, I might actually beat you.” He had good reason to think that. It had been a hard campaign.

His entrance into the race had been a surprise to the entire field, but he approached it with grace, humor, and enthusiasm grounded in his faith. He earned his spurs, so to speak, by traipsing all over Wyoming with the rest of us, walking parades, answering questions at forums and debates. Campaigning is tough for anyone but this 79-year-old man, it was clear, had demonstrated he had the stuff it takes to be a strong leader.

I took his comment seriously. By then he had Chuck Norris backing him and Donald Trump Jr. Foster Friess was a fierce competitor eventually gaining President Trump’s endorsement shortly before the primary. 

Foster and I agreed to keep the race above board – and I believe we did. Sure, there were some clumsy and ineffective 3rd party shenanigans towards the end, but neither of us ever condoned them.

Foster was always a gentleman, as were Sam Galeotos and Taylor Haynes. All were among the first to offer help to a new Governor with  so much to learn from each. I am grateful because I know it isn’t easy to offer a hand after such a hard fought election . It sucks to lose and it really hurts.

This election, similar to the one two years ago, has amplified the sorts of big city, big money, nasty half-truths and flat-out lies or falsehoods that have become all too common in other states. It’s not the Wyoming I know.

Here we respect the Code of the West, and most candidates always worked to discourage that sort of campaigning. They understood it was offensive to Wyoming people, who pretty well know right from wrong. Contrast is one thing, but bearing false witness is taboo for a population that appreciates all ten of the Commandments.

Where has that sensibility gone? This election we have been abused by cynical political operatives whose stock-in-trade is to twist facts and foment suspicion with incomplete, dishonest tales and misinformation. Especially galling are out-of-state political operatives who get paid big bucks for duping voters.  I hope their vilification is misplaced in the Cowboy State.  Wyoming voters are honest and they care. 

I believe voters will see through the baloney that passes for politics elsewhere and will come to rest on those candidates who know what they are talking about, know and care about Wyomingites and know what is important to Wyoming – jobs, family, the economy, and our way of life.

Ask yourself, is this candidate talking mostly about someone else, or, as they should be, are they listening and talking about the things that will keep our core industries vital, our way of life secure, our kids safe, and our communities whole. Ask yourself if what they are saying is valuable to your community, to your family, to your grandchildren –  or is it just political blather and mud?

Ask what a candidate has actually done to make the state better and why.  Ask for details. 

I say enough with the name calling, the false information, the nasty for nasty sake. Enough with the schlock that uses Wyoming voters as fundraising bait. Let’s elect people for who they are and what they will do, not for what some mysterious, never-heard-of-them-before organization ginned up to make voters mad. Let’s elect people to represent our interests, not puppets who parrot consultants’ talking points.  

Ride for the brand!

Cont:

The number of mailers per day has now reached the absolutely insane level.

Real attack mailers are now coming, and they are quite frankly absurd. The ones directed at Barlow are at the level where the authors should be forced to memorize the Summa Theologica in the original Latin and be able to recite it back without looking, particularly the part on lying.

One that came today compared Liz Cheney to Reid Rasner.

Seriously?

That would be in favor of Reid Rasner.

Harriet Hageman's today emphasized her protecting Second Amendment rights. What flaming carp.  The 2nd Amendment hasn't been under attack now for decades.

There were three Steve Friess ones, all devoid of content, as all of his hard.  He promised to use his "Conservative" values to help President Trump.

Trump isn't a conservative, he's a fascist, with it often failing to be noted that both fascism and communism are populist movements (so is socialism).  And at this point, for those wanting to "help" Trump, these questions should seriously be asked:

• Do you intend to help him launch more illegal wars?
• Do you intend to pursue the illegal wars without a declaration of war, and are you willing to bear the cost of the dead on your souls?
• Do you intend to support illegal tariffs?
• Do you intend to help subvert the result of the election?
• Do you intend to help Donald Trump get richer while the lower middle class gets poorer?
• Do you intend to help wreck Christianity in the country by pretending that Trump's a Christian?

Why the crap would anyone pledge to help Trump?

Conservatives wouldn't.

Apparently nobody thinks about the heepings of bullshit that go into the real far right mailers.  But Wyoming voters are polite in not asking any politician about his background.  Right now, for instance, you don't know anything about the carpetbagger candidates save what they have chosen to tell you.

August 15, 2026

So, the money trail for Governor.

Barlow leads with over $1.6M.  raised of which 75% is individual donors, 95% of which were in Wyoming.  Degenfelder comes in at $1.2M . The biggest share of her funds were from personal and family loans, of which $25,000 is from herself, and $500,000 from her father.

Bien only raised $200,000.  95% of his donors were also from within Wyoming.

Virginian based Make Liberty Win has spent $549,000, even importing in carpetbagging young people to distribute it's flyers. They've come to the door twice.  They're backing Freedom Caucus candidates.

Yesterday brought another thick crop of flyers.

Footnotes:

*She's not the first.  The first outright Socialist to be elected to  Congress, which she is not, was  Rep. Victor L. Berger of Wisconsin, who was elected in 1923.  The first Democratic Socialist to be elected to Congress was Korean War Marine Corps veteran Ronald Vernie Dellums of California, who was elected in 1971.  He served in that position until 1998.  

It's notable that with quite a few Democratic Socialist their affiliation is rather mixed.  It's almost more akin to being a member of a Caucus, like the Freedom Caucus, than actually being a member of a party, even though it is a party. Typically, Democratic Socialist run as Democrats, just as Freedom Caucus members run as Republicans rather than as fascists or Francoist.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 18th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part two.Labels: 2026 Election, Chuck Gray, Eric Barlow, Harriet Hageman, Jillian Balow, Joan Barron, Kevin Christensen, Phil Roberts, Reid Rasner, Samuel Mead, Steve Friess, Tom Lubnau, Wyoming Freedom Caucus

The 2026 Election, 17th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does.*

2026 Election, Carpetbaggers, Cynthia Lummis, Donald Trump, Enemies of Public Lands, Liz Cheney, Politics, Public Land, Republican Party, Richard Dodson, Wyoming, Wyoming Freedom Caucus, Doug Burgum, Elon Musk, Frank Chapman, J. R. Riggins, Jim Geringer, Kevin Christensen, National Conservatism, Neil Jeske, Reid Rasner, Tom Lubnau,Bo Biteman, Brent BienChuck Gray, Eric Barlow, Francoism, Harriet Hageman, James Byrd, Jillian Balow, Megan Degenfelder, Predictions, Samuel Mead, Steve Friess, Steve Harshman, Yeoman's Thirty-first law of behavior 

Labels:

The 2026 Election, 18th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part three. More labels.

 

The 2026 Election, 18th Edition. Primary Voting Commences Edition. Vote like your future and that of your state depends on it, because it does, part three. Yet more labels.

 

Coca-Cola, 1971 - 'Hilltop' | "I'd like to buy the world a Coke"

Friday, January 26, 1945. Audie Murphy.

The Przyszowice massacre began in Upper Silesia, Poland. It carried into the next day, during which the Red Army killed between 54 and 69 civilian Poles in the community.  The Soviets may have mistaken the Poles for Germans, which still wouldn't justify their actions.

The Battle of the Heiligenbeil Pocket began on the Eastern Front.

The Battle for the Kapelsche Veer began in the Netherlands.

Lt. Audie Murphy performed the actions that resulted in his winning the Medal of Honor.  His citation reads:

2d Lt. Murphy commanded Company B, which was attacked by 6 tanks and waves of infantry. 2d Lt. Murphy ordered his men to withdraw to prepared positions in a woods, while he remained forward at his command post and continued to give fire directions to the artillery by telephone. Behind him, to his right, 1 of our tank destroyers received a direct hit and began to burn. Its crew withdrew to the woods. 2d Lt. Murphy continued to direct artillery fire which killed large numbers of the advancing enemy infantry. With the enemy tanks abreast of his position, 2d Lt. Murphy climbed on the burning tank destroyer, which was in danger of blowing up at any moment, and employed its .50 caliber machinegun against the enemy. He was alone and exposed to German fire from 3 sides, but his deadly fire killed dozens of Germans and caused their infantry attack to waver. The enemy tanks, losing infantry support, began to fall back. For an hour the Germans tried every available weapon to eliminate 2d Lt. Murphy, but he continued to hold his position and wiped out a squad which was trying to creep up unnoticed on his right flank. Germans reached as close as 10 yards, only to be mowed down by his fire. He received a leg wound, but ignored it and continued the single-handed fight until his ammunition was exhausted. He then made his way to his company, refused medical attention, and organized the company in a counterattack which forced the Germans to withdraw. His directing of artillery fire wiped out many of the enemy; he killed or wounded about 50. 2d Lt. Murphy's indomitable courage and his refusal to give an inch of ground saved his company from possible encirclement and destruction, and enabled it to hold the woods which had been the enemy's objective.

Murphy is famous, of course, for having been the most highly decorated US soldier of World War Two, although that is no longer the case or at least not clearly the case.  He was, undoubtedly, heroic.

His life was, overall, quite sad.  He came from an impoverished background in which his father abandoned his large family.  He acquired hunting skills as a child in part for that reason, as that provided necessary food for the table.  His education ended at the 5th Grade level.  Seemingly a natural born soldier, he wanted to stay in the post war Army and even contemplated trying to attend West Point, but his lack of an education and physical injuries precluded it.  He did remain in the Texas National Guard.  He had an explosive temper even as a child, and suffered from PTSD after the war. 

After the war, he worked as an actor and songwriter.  

He died in 1971 in an airplane crash.  His father outlived him, dying in 1975.  His beloved mother died in 1941.

Last edition:

Thursday, January 25, 1945. The Beginning of the Evacuation of East Prussia and the Nature of the Red Army.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Battle of the Bulge, British Army, Burma, Evacuation of East Prussia, German Wehrmacht, Health, Philippines, Prussia, Rape and the Red Army, Red Army, Volkssturm, World War Two

Sunday, February 24, 1974. Advent of Fireforce, getting mad at Confucious.

The Fireforce vertical envelopment tactic was used by the 1st Battalion of the Rhodesian Light Infantry in the first example of its use.  The tactic was developed as Rhodesian Aérospatiale Alouette III had a limited carrying capacity in comparison to the very large helicopters used by the US in similar roles.

Rhodesian Alouette III.

The use of aircraft outside of their original intended roles was fairly common in African wars of the 60s, 70s and 80s.

The People's Republic of China began a a nationwide campaign to discredit Confucius and Lin Biao as "reactionaries who tried to turn back the wheel of history" which was certainly cutting a pretty wide swath given that Confucius died in 479 BC, and Lin Biao in 1971.

Last prior:

Wednesday, February 14, 1974. Solzhenitsyn expelled.

Tuesday, January 12, 1943. Landings at Amchitka, Operation Iskra.

The U.S. landed troops on Amchitka.  It was an unopposed landing, as the Japanese had chosen not to occupy it.  Weather was bad and unpredictable and the USS Wordon was swept into rocks and ultimately broke up.  Fourteen of the crew died and the commanding officer was swept off the ship, but survived, while it was being abandoned.  The Japanese learned of the landing several days later when weather cleared sufficiently for a scout plane to overfly the island.

USS Worden sinking.

The island was used as an airbase by the U.S. in spite of the horrible weather it experiences, and set the stage for the US assault on Kiska.

The island is large by Aleutian standards, consisting of 116 square miles.  Not too surprisingly, given its size, it was historically occupied by the Aleuts but there has been no population on the island since 1832.  It's tectonically unstable.

Because of its uninhabited status, it was chosen by the US for underground detonation of nuclear weapons in order to test seismic detection, with nuclear weapons being inserted in bore holes in 1965, 1969 and 1971.

The parents of the Sullivan Brothers were informed for the first time that their sons, who had gone down in action in November, were missing in action.

In our last entry we noted the ship named in honor of the Sullivan brothers, the USS Sullivans.  Oddly enough, it was in the news yesterday after taking a huge haul of Iranian AKMs that were being shipped to Yemen.

Winston Churchill departed for Morocco to meet with Franklin Roosevelt, who had left the day prior.  Their departures were obviously kept secret.

The Soviets launched Operation Iskra aimed at breaking the German's siege on Leningrad.

Pierre Laval concluded a deal with Nazi Germany, allowing the Germans to administer the Departments du Nord and Pas de Calais.  France, under the arrangement, also pledged to provide 400,000 skilled workers to Germany and to essentially provide the remaining elements of its navy to Germany.  France retained the policing role in the German administered territories.

President Roosevelt addressed farmers for Farm Mobilization Day.

January 12, 1943

All over the world, food from our country's farms is helping the United Nations to win this war. From the South Pacific to the winter front in Russia, from North Africa to India, American food is giving strength to the men on the battle lines, and sometimes also to the men and women working behind the lines. Somewhere on every continent the food ships from this country are the life line of the forces that fight for freedom. This afternoon we have heard from some of the military and civilian righters who look to us for food. No words of mine can add to what they have said.

But on this Farm Mobilization Day I want to round out the picture and tell you a little more about the vital place that American farmers hold in the entire war strategy of the United Nations.

Food is a weapon in total war- fully as important in its way as guns or planes or tanks. So are other products of the farm. The long-staple cotton that goes into parachutes, for example, the oils that go into paints for the ships and planes and guns, the grains that go into alcohol to make explosives also are weapons.

Our enemies know the use of food in war. They employ it cold-bloodedly to strengthen their own fighters and workers and to weaken or exterminate the peoples of the conquered countries. We of the United Nations also are using food as a weapon to keep our fighting men fit and to maintain the health of all our civilian families. We are using food to earn the friendship of people in liberated areas and to serve as a promise and an encouragement to peoples who are not yet free. Already, in North Africa, the food we are sending the inhabitants is saving the energies and the lives of our troops there. In short we are using food, both in this country and in Allied countries, with the single aim of helping to win this war.

Already it is taking a lot of food to fight the war. It is going to take a lot more to win the final victory and win the peace that will follow. In terms of total food supply the United Nations are far stronger than our enemies. But our great food resources are scattered to the ends of the earth—from Australia and New Zealand to South Africa and the Americas- and we no longer have food to waste. Food is precious, just as oil and steel are precious. As part of our global strategy, we must produce all we can of every essential farm product; we must divide our supplies wisely and use them carefully. We cannot afford to waste any of them.

Therefore the United Nations are pooling their food resources and using them where they will do the most good. Canada is sending large shipments of cheese, meats, and other foods on the short North Atlantic run to Britain. Australia and New Zealand are providing a great deal of the food for American soldiers stationed in that part of the world. Food from Latin America is going to Britain.

Every food-producing country among the United Nations is doing its share. Our own share in food strategy, especially at this stage of the war, is large, because we have such great resources for production; and we are on direct ocean lanes to North Africa, to Britain, and to the northern ports of Russia.

American farmers must feed our own growing Army and Navy. They must feed the civilian families of this country and feed them well. They must help feed the fighting men and some of the war workers of Britain and Russia and, to a lesser degree, those of other Allied countries.

So this year, as never before, the entire Nation is looking to its farmers. Many quarters of the free world are looking to them too. American farmers are a small group with a great task. Although 60 percent of the world's population are farm people, only 2 percent of that population are American farmers. But that 2 percent have the skill and the energy to make this country the United Nations' greatest arsenal for food and fiber.

In spite of the handicaps under which American farmers worked last year, the production victory they won was among the major victories of the United Nations in 1942. Free people everywhere can be grateful to the farm families who made that victory possible.

This year the American farmer's task is greater, and the obstacles more formidable. But I know that once more our farmers will rise to their responsibility.

This farm mobilization is the first day ever dedicated by a President to the farm people of the Nation. I know that the whole country joins with me in a tribute to the work farmers already have done, in a pledge of full support in the difficult task which lies ahead for farmers, and in a prayer for good weather to make farmers' efforts more fruitful.

Our fighting men and allies, and our families here at home can rely on farmers for the food and other farm products that will help to bring victory.

Popular horse trailers from 1971.

 

Popular horse trailers from 1971.

December 4, 1971. Smoke On the Water

Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention.

This day in history is recalled for a tragedy, that being the destruction of the Montreux Casino in Switzerland during a Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention concert. 

The event was the topic of Deep Purple's song, Smoke on the Water.

We all came out to Montreux
On the Lake Geneva shoreline
To make records with a mobile
We didn't have much time
Frank Zappa and the Mothers
Were at the best place around
But some stupid with a flare gun
Burned the place to the ground

Smoke on the water
A fire in the sky
Smoke on the water

They burned down the gambling house
It died with an awful sound
Uh, Funky Claude was running in and out
Pulling kids on the ground
When it all was over
We had to find another place
But Swiss time was running out
It seemed that we would lose the race

Deep Purple in 1968.

Deep Purple had planned to record there, but had to find another venue.

On the same day, McGurk's Bar, a Catholic tavern in Belfast, was bombed, killing fifteen people, including two children.  And the Indian Navy attacked the Pakistani Navy at Karachi.

Wednesday November 24, 1971. The Flight of D. B. Cooper

On this day in 1971 a man wearing as suit and tie, typical travel attire for the era, checked into a short flight from Seattle to Tacoma, Washington, something only requiring thirty minutes of flying time.  Once the plane was airborne, he slipped a note to a stewardess seated nearby, who at first ignored it, thinking he was trying to pick her up. He then told her to read the note, which claimed he had a bomb in a briefcase.

At the time no search of carry ons was conducted, and the stewardess asked to see the bomb, which the man proceeded to show her. And then a several hours long ordeal unfolded in which the man, who had checked into the airplane as Dan Cooper, ordered that he receive $200,000, two reserve parachutes and two main parachutes, and that the plane take a route in which Mexico was the declared ultimate destination.  The money and the parachutes were provided in Tacoma, where Cooper also released most of the passengers and all of the stewardesses save for one.  Showing very advance knowledge of the aircraft, a Boeing 727, he instructed the pilots to fly it at 10,000 feet, keep the wheels down, and to set the flaps at a certain angle, all of which made sure that it was flying very slowly.

Once airborne, he parachuted into the night near Mount St. Helens during a severe thunderstorm, leaving via the 727's unique integral downloading back staircase.  The man, misnamed by the press as "D. B. Cooper", was not apprehended and most of the money has never been found.

This has, of course, been one of the most enduring air mysteries and crime mysteries of all time.  The serial numbers of the bills involved were microfilmed, but only a small number of them have ever been located, and those by campers on the Columbia River in 1980.  The bundles they found were, moreover, badly deteriorated but their bundling was not, with a small number of bills missing in a manner which raised questions as to how that could have occurred.  Given that the money did not resurface, the official speculation is that Cooper died parachuting into the forest, in a thunderstorm, at night.

There's plenty of reason to suspect that is the case.  He obviously was extremely familiar with the aircraft, its systems, and knew something about parachuting.  Nonetheless, he wasn't dressed for a hike through the wilderness and, dropping at night, he could not possibly have had anything but a remote idea as to where he'd be coming down. While some discount the chances of his death, night drops are always risky, let alone one in which a military parachute was used (which it was) and in which he was badly dressed for the endeavor.  The fact that the money never resurfaced strongly suggests he was killed in the attempt.

In spite of the massive effort to capture him, he was not located alive and no body was ever found. . .to date and, more oddly, nobody was ever reported as missing.  The knowledge that he displayed was quite distinct and therefore the number of suspects would seem rather limited, but nonetheless there's never been any solid leads.

The mystery remains an enduring one not only because Cooper wasn't captured, but also because there are so many clues regarding him, and yet he remains elusive.  Suffice it to day, if the event occurred today, which it would not as airline security has changed so much, Cooper would have been captured or found dead.

Cooper in fact left many clues as to his background, and therefore his identity. There was, of course, first of all his appearance.  He had "olive" skin and therefore a "Latin" appearance, something that gave him somewhat of a minority appearance for a Caucasian.  He was smoking heavily, although that could have been to steady his nerves, and therefore was a smoker at any rate, although at that point a little over 40% of all Americans smoked weekly, with that likely meaning that well over 50% of men did.

More tellingly, however, Cooper demonstrated a knowledge of parachutes, and expressed a request for military parachutes rather than sporting ones.  A comment from the air noted that he recognized the Air Force base at Tacoma.  And he had an extremely advanced knowledge of the features of the 727, knowing how slow it could go, knowing how to precisely set the flaps to slow it further, and knowing that it uniquely had a real loading under fuselage staircase that could be opened in flight.

Indeed, the 727 had seen military use in Vietnam due to its rear loading staircase for that very reason, with the Central Intelligence Agency using them for air drops of material.

These combined facts strongly suggest that Cooper had a military background of some sort, but they also, when combined with other factors, discount his having been a paratrooper, as is sometimes suggested.  

Cooper did not ask for the static line T-10 model of parachute in use then and now, but rather one that could be deployed manually, as would have been necessary for the drop.  That was a necessarily choice, but otherwise Cooper seemed to display an ignorance as to actual dropping.  He wanted the plane low, 10,000 feet, which makes sense, but military parachutes have a very violent deployment which meant that getting his stolen loot to the ground would have been difficult.  Beyond that, keeping his shoes on would have been difficult as well.

Landing safely would have been extremely difficult.  Deploying into the night, and in a severe thunderstorm, the odds would have been against him making it to the ground and landing uninjured.  Even if he did come down in the storm without injury, military parachutes of the era required, for good reason, the wearing of protective footgear, which his dress shoes were not in any fashion.  Moreover, his leaving in the night meant that he was risking coming down in trees experienced parachutists desperately seek to avoid as they are so strongly associated with death and injury to them.  

Finally, his clothing wasn't close to being suitable for a hike out of the forest.

Indeed, the entire concept of parachuting out of the plane, at night, seems to have been intentional, but it also seems to have been reckless in the extreme for a plot which was otherwise very well planned out.  Cooper's plan either seemed to discount the dangers and difficulties with making his departure from the plane to the ground safe, and his escape complete, or he just didn't care, trusting to luck at that point. And that also gives us an interesting hint as to his potential identity.

Combining all fo these up to this point, what this suggests is that Cooper had military experience involving parachutes and airplanes, but not that of being a paratrooper.  Being a pilot or a cargomaster seems the most likely candidates.

Analysis of  his tie, however, conducted years later suggests that he worked in heavy industry, and in some managerial capacity.  The aircraft manufacturing industry itself would seem to be a good candidate, as his clip on tie contained metals and substances that were used in that industry at the time, and which were unlikely to be picked up accidentally.

Combining all of these, it seems likely that Cooper was or had recently been an employee of an aircraft manufacturing company, perhaps Boeing the maker of the plane, and in that capacity he had become very familiar with the 727.  He likely had some prior military experience, or at least was aware of the military use of the plane.  He knew too much about the 727 for that knowledge to be casual, and if he had picked up any studied knowledge for the attempt, it would have been as to the use of the parachutes, and not the aircraft.  That knowledge would have been easier to obtain, and perhaps could have been obtained on the job.

Indeed, the oddity of it can't help but cause a person to have at least some question as to a possible connection with service in the CIA, and that has been suggested.

Of course, suggesting a CIA connection to things is commonly done with certain big events, with some reaching the absurd level. The claims, for instance, that the CIA was involved in the 9/11 attacks provides such an absurd example.  But here, there's at least some credibility to those claims.

The OSS of the 1940s and the CIA of the 50s and 60s was truly populated, in part, with characters who were "spooks".  And examples of servicemen and espionage characters going rouge are not too difficult to find.  Not really analogous, the example of Jonathan Pollard certainly comes to mind.  But beyond that, Lee Harvey Oswald was a Marine Corps veteran, turned defector, turned lone assassin.  Timothy McVey was a serviceman who turned against his own society. The recent January 6 Insurrection featured a serving Army intelligence officer.

While, once again, none of those ins analogous, it's not beyond the pale to think that a former member of the CIA went to work for Boeing and then used his knowledge to develop this scheme. Such a former member would have most likely been a pilot or crewmember of the 727 effort over Vietnam, with both positions being ones that would have been much less spy like than simply a rarefied form of government service.

Such a connection has been suggested as the reason the crime has never been solved, and while that sounds like a wacky conspiracy theory, it's at least partially credible as well. The CIA of the 60s and 70s did all sorts of things that it kept secret that are of an iffy nature, and the Government intelligence branches weren't above doing that, even coming up with bogus UFO reports to gaslight an individual.  If there was a CIA connection in 1970s, it's not at all impossible to imagine the CIA realizing a former member was involved and acting to cover the entire matter up.

That doesn't prove that by any means, however.

Other possibilities simply include a Boeing employee, or that of a contractor, who knew enough about the 727 and went to learn enough about parachuting to pull that part of it off.  It's also possible that it was done by a pilot form another airline who possibly had prior military experience or who simply studied up on parachutes before attempting the plot.  Indeed, this is quite plausible.  It's even possible that Cooper was a member of the one Air National Guard unit using a militarized version of the airplane at the time.

While we don't know, my guess is that he was a former or current Boeing employee who had some prior service connection, but not as a paratrooper.

If that's the case, then the question would be why he wasn't discovered.

It's simply possible that, in spite of the extremely long odds, he pulled it off.  It's hard to imagine a person walking to a forest road dressed in a suit and hitching a ride to town, but then it's also possible that the suit covered up a second set of clothes.  Maybe under that we was wearing a pair of Levis and a flannel shirt, although dress shirts are thin.  Still, it seems unlikely, but it's not impossible.  Perhaps he landed safely, hiked to a road, with or without most of the money, and made good his escape, returning to work after the holiday.  As careful as he was, chances are that he wouldn't have spent any of the money right away, or knew how to fence it without getting caught, which would not have been difficult at the time.

More likely, in my mind, he has already quit his job with Boeing, perhaps a year or more ago, and didn't have work to return to, which would explain a lot.

The careful part of the plan was getting the money and getting out of the airplane. Beyond that, very clearly, much was left to chance.  Perhaps to Cooper his chances in life had run out and therefore what happened beyond that point didn't really matter.  If he made good his escape, he had the money, if he didn't, he wasn't going to have to worry about it.

Any number of things come to mind.  Reported to be ni his mid 40s, he was smoking like a train which always raises the possibility that he had lung cancer or some other serious health issue.  If so, Cooper may have needed the money for something, and if the end came in the jump, that something wouldn't have mattered.

And then there's the myriad of things that seem looming at the time and prove not to be. Debts, legal and illegal, failed relationships, or whatever.

So why didn't they figure it out?

Assuming, of course, no CIA cover up, which we will assume, although as we noted, as wild as that sounds, it's not completely beyond the pale.

Assuming that, the ability to simply disappear in 1971 was much better than it is now.  Now, it's nearly impossible, but at the time, that wasn't the case.  DNA testing didn't exist at the time. Finger printing did of course, but not everyone had finger print data and even where it did exist, it often didn't lead to leads for a variety of reasons, including bad prints and bad police data.  Photo databases were in hard copy and microfilm form.  Most people operated mostly on a cash and check basis at the time with credit cards being rare and even somewhat disdained.  Millions of men  had been in the Army, fo course, but that meant millions of paper records that had to be accessed by hand.  Employment records operated the same way.  Social Security cards were easy to get, and like now, they didn't feature photographs. Driver licenses did, but pulling those records would also have required near knowledge that the one being sought was of the guilty person.

So searching for people was much more difficult.

And indeed, this explains the reason that a person's becoming a lifelong fugitive from that era is not all that uncommon. Just recently, for example,  to identify of a 1969 bank robber was revealed.  Theodore Conrad was a 20-year-old bank teller that year, just two years prior to the year we're considering, when he robbed his own employer of $215,000 in cash.  It turns out that he was Thomas Randele, having relocated from Ohio to Massachusetts, where he had subsequently lived a quiet life.  Interestingly, his posthumous identify was revealed due to ongoing FBI work on the robbery, which has supposedly ceased on the 1971 skyjacking. . .

Another example would be Abbie Hoffman, who is remembered for being a radical anti-war protestor but who was arrested for conspiracy to distribute cocaine, a charge he was was a set-up, in 1973.  He fled in 1974 and turned himself in, in 1980, at which time it was fairly clear nobody was really looking for him anymore.

Randele was young and employed when he scooped up a bunch of cash on his way off the door and became a lifelong fugitive.  Cooper appears to have been a middle-aged, highly intelligent, and experienced man when he went out the back of the 727.  If he was at that time an unemployed, for whatever reason, loner, living in an apartment or even a rented house, he could well have just disappeared forever, even if killed.  He may well have had no work to report back to, or maybe it was minor work, in which case he would have just been replaced as an employee for failing to show back up.  Or if he was medically retired, and living modestly but alone, even if he never showed back up it might well not have meant much.  

Of course, if he did show back up, people likely would never have taken notice.

So could he be found now?

That's an interesting question.

Randele was.  The FBI claims it closed Cooper's file, but Randele's was even older and unlike other recent cold cases, it didn't involve DNA.  Cooper left a ton of really interesting leads that still exist.  There's all that there originally was and now, more.  Moreover, the computerization of records has reached a state where it's reaching back into the past.

Given all of this, in my view, there's enough to take a second look, and some people have. For example, there's the work of Citizen Sleuths, which goes much further than what I've noted here:

Citizen Sleuths Analyze the D.B. Cooper Case

With all of this in mind, there's one other thing to keep in mind.

The most likely outcome of this mystery isn't a happy one, even assuming that a happy conclusion can be made from what was, after all, a terrible terroristic crime.  Cooper, whatever his real name was, likely went crashing into a forest canopy unprepared and at fairly high speed, given the military parachutes in use, and was likely hung up in the trees or killed right on the spot.  If not, his chances ankle injury were outstanding.  

No body has ever been found, but this very year a body of a hunter was discovered in Wyoming that had been out an equivalent period of time.  People go missing into the forest even now and are never found.  Cooper's body likely was hanging in the trees for years and has since decayed and fallen to the ground, to be distributed by wild animals.  His loot was probably distributed by the impact, assuming that it didn't get blown off his body when the parachute opened.  Only bits and pieces of the chute likely exist today, and nobody looks up in trees for those, and they likely couldn't be seen anyhow.

Also on this day. . . 

Ian Smith at the Convervative Monday Club in 1990, complete with Rhodesian flags.

Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith and British Foreign Secretary Alec Douglas-Home signed an agreement lifting British economic sanctions in exchange for Rhodesia outlawing racial segregation, with the eventual goal of the country gong to majority black rule. 

The agreement was shortlived and really didn't go anywhere.  It is an interesting reflection, however, on politics of the time.

Rhodesia had declared independence unilaterally in 1965 over the objections of the United Kingdom.  It was one of those area of the British Empire/British Commonwealth which had a reputation of being more English than the English, but only if a person considered the English minority population of the country.

The move came about due to Harold MacMillan's policies, as Prime Minister, of divesting the UK of its colonies, something that had become inevitable but which the UK had struggled with since the Second World War. That the British Empire could not survive in that form had been obvious since before the Boer War, and the British had developed the commonwealth concept as a means of trying to evolve outright rule of its colonies into an association of English influenced nations.  The concept is hard to express now, but basically it was based on there being a certain Britishness, and once a colony became mature, it joined in the commonwealth as part and parcel of the British nation, looking to the King or Queen as the sovereign, and not really fully independent, at least as to foreign affairs.  Canada was the first former colony to achieve this status, obtaining it in 1867.  This was followed by Australia, New Zealand, Newfoundland, South Africa and the Irish Free State.  In 1926 the dominions were given authority over their foreign affairs.

By the time the Irish Free State was given dominion status, which followed its treaty with the United Kingdom gaining its independence, the entire concept was in trouble.  Ireland didn't want dominion status in the first place.  It wanted outright independence and simply terminated its dominion status in 1937 unilaterally.  South Africa proved to be a problematic dominion at best as the Afrikaans population of the country resented the English both in the UK and in South Africa.  Meanwhile, in places like Rhodesia, being English continued to be a huge matter of self identity.

World War Two made the entire colonial/dominion enterprise untenable even while it was the last great gasp of empire.  The United States obviously closely supported the United Kingdom even while making it known that it did not support the ongoing maintenance of empire.  Ireland sat the war out as an official belligerent. South Africa entered the war, but barely supported it.  Following the war, the United Kingdom struggled for a time to maintain the system, but following the Suez crisis of 1956 it became clear to the UK that the day of empire and even commonwealth was simply over.  In 1960 the winds of change speech was delivered in South Africa, and the UK essentially announced that it was going to recognize independence movements in its colonies and divest itself of them.

This created a firestorm of concern in the British colony of Southern Rhodesia, which had been self-governing since 1923.  Recognizing that white minority rule was untenable even before the Suez Crisis, the British had attempted to create a larger political entity in 1956 by creating the Federation of Rhodesia and Nyasaland,  It proved unstable right from the onset, with Rhodesia having outsized influence upon it.  It broke up in 1963 and its other regions headed rapidly towards independence.  Concerned that the British would force Rhodesia into a racial equality, the white controlled government declared independence in 1965.  No nation every recognized it.  For that matter, the British South African Police, which formed the policing body of the nation, nearly refused to recognize the move, while the army in the region did, leading to a rather odd tense situation.  Ultimately the BSAP came around, reluctantly.

This resulted in a hostile relationship between Rhodesia and the United Kingdom with Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson very much opposed to the unilateral move.  In 1970, however, Edward Heath became the Conservative Prime Minister and the position for Rhodesia improved.  The agreement noted above was negotiated with the thesis that it would move the country towards eventual full democracy.

The agreement was really moribund from the onset, being of the nature of too little too late.  By 1971 colonial constituents everywhere were no longer willing to wait for Europeans to eventually recognize them as political equals.  Such proposals elsewhere featuring slow evolution of this type, such as in Algeria, had likewise met with failure.  Added to it, as the Cold War was now raging, it became fairly easy for independence movements to secure funding and arms against colonial governments or, in this case, one that looked back toward the United Kingdom in an old-fashioned, and very English, way.  The proposal met with no acceptance by black nationalist movements and rapidly failed.  For that matter, Heath would be back out of office by 1974 and Wilson back in.

The ultimate results were not surprising, but perhaps what would be to a current audience is the degree to which Rhodesia, even though it did not gain political recognition anywhere, nonetheless retained some sympathy.  It obviously had it with conservatives in the United Kingdom, which were willing to acquiesce to the concept of eventual political rights to Africans, but not immediate ones.  It had a fair amount of support in South Africa, for obvious reasons, as it was also attempting to maintain a whites only rule.  Even in the US, however, a fair number of people supported it.  The nation was a pariah of a type, but only of a type.

All of that has since obviously changed and it's nearly impossible to imagine any of this occurring now.  South Africa only had 250,000 white residents and a black population of 5,000,000.

U.S. Air Force F15s flying over Okinawa.  Thirty-two American military bases remain on Okinawa.

Japan's diet recogized on this date the Okinawa Reversion Act which sought to vest control of the island back in Japan.  Somewhat controversial in the US, the treaty with the US returned Japanese control to the island that had been the scene of bloody fighting in World War Two.