If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.
Herbert Stein.
September 23, 2026
Something is actually going on in the GOP for the first time since the Dixiecrat MAGA insurgency took control of the party and made it a populist party.
Bit and pieces of the signs are everywhere, all of a sudden. Stein's Law has arrived.
GOP candidates are in trouble all over the country and now they're starting to dump Trump. A good example of this is Congressman Ashley Hinson, who is trying to do the same thing that Harriet Hageman is trying to do, which is to move into a retiring Senator's spot. She's in real trouble in that effort and recent polls indicate that she's behind. The Republican seat appears slated to go to a Democrat. The GOP sent out John Barrasso to stump for her, an odd choice as Barrasso isn't inspiring on his alleged home turf, but the thought must have been that the Senate Whip could show how Hinson winning would help the Dear Leader.
Well, that message didn't seem to take. So Hinson started to bolt. From her Facebook.
Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices.
That includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, unleashing E-15 everywhere we can, reinstating the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit, and creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs.
While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so that Iowans don’t suffer from crumbling roads and bridges while relief comes our way now. These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.
I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.
Go home Dave. You drank too much WFC Kool aide.
Elsewhere, Wyoming teachers are organizing against the attempt to bankrupt the state:
Teachers, hospital leaders launch $1M campaign to fight property tax ballot measure
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom
Matthew, Chapter 24.
Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than malice.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer
July 26, 2026
China v. Taiwan
The Houthis hit oil infrastructure in Saudi Arabia yesterday.
So, in keeping with that, a prediction.
July 29, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
The U.S. Senate advanced Russian energy sanctions legislation Tuesday as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy visited the Capitol. The vote was seen as a tribute to the bill’s author, the late Sen. Lindsey Graham, on the day of his funeral, which was widely attended by politicos.
Trump fell asleep during it as J. D. Vance seemed oblivious to the dozing octogenarian and Bessent looked nervous about it, but then he always looks nervous.
July 31, 2026
Israeli Hamas War
The Bored of Peas has supposedly worked out a peace plan in Gaza. Sober analysts a 4th Grade level have severe doubts about it.
August 1, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
Now Trump is backtracking and saying the US won't license Patriot missile production to Ukraine.
August 2, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine has run out of ballistic missile interceptors. This comes at the same time that the US supply is seriously depleted due to Donald Trump's illegal moronic war against Iran.
King Donny should free up what remains of the US supply and give them to Ukraine, and start emergency production for the US. As for Iran, we can solve that problem simply by pulling out. Better yet, pulling out, putting every senior commander who agreed to fight in a clearly illegal war on trial, and impeaching Donald Trump.
Crisis in Ceuta
Not a war but requiring Spanish military deployment, a mass flood of immigrants crashed into the Spanish North African city of Ceuta.
About 50,000 North African immigrants stormed the city, leading to dramatic news footage and MAGA "see, it could happen here" claims. Missed in the story is that 48,000 of them returned to Morocco within 48 hours.
A bigger question may be why Spain retains a city that you would figure should be part of Morocco, but it does.
Italy defensively suspended the EU's border-free Schengen arrangements with Spain.
August 10, 2026
Israel v. Hamas.
Israel had rejected the "Board of Peace" peace plan, refusing to enter into a peace deal with Hamas until it is definitely disarmed.
Another blow to King Donny.
August 17, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
Both sides exchanged heavy missile and drone attacks yesterday. A NATO jet on patrol shot down a drone that had strayed into Romania.
August 18, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
Robert Shaheiev, 49, formerly of the Ukrainian Navy who defected to Russia early in the war died in an explosion in Sevastopol.
Whether he was targeted or not, Ukrainian operatives have proven effective at hunting down figures in the Russian military that they find particularly responsible for various matters. Shaheiev defected with a submarine.
Korean War
Donald Trump has signaled that the US is going to scale back it's participation in joint exercises with the South Korean Army.
What's going on here is terribly unclear. The US has maintained troops in the ROK since the 1945 and the threat of North Korean invasion is very real.
I should note that this isn't entirely unprecedented. Jimmy Carter actually campaigned on the idea in 1976 and tried to implement a phased withdrawal, which was abandoned over conservative and military objections. Since the 1980s, military support of South Korea has been very strong.
Trumps move comes at a time when the US is losing an illegal war with Iran and is having to pull naval assets out of the Pacific. It also comes at a point at which the longtime Red Chinese goal of forcibly reunited Taiwan with the mainland is at its highest point. Combined with that, Trump's administration is packed with National Conservatives who have a sort of Neo Nineteenth Century view of where the U.S.'s foreign policy should be focused.
Given that, Trump's decision could be the result of his listening to National Conservatives, or it could be because or logistical situation is much worse than admitted.
It could also be because South Korea refused to participate in the illegal war, like every other nation on earth did. Trump has not taken that well. Nobody seems to be pointing out that South Korea did participate in the Vietnam War, which Trump did not. Trump himself, at any rate, referenced South Korea's lack of willingness to get into the losing war with Iran.
Because of Trump's other actions, however, there's widespread commentary about whether Trump is a Russian asset and this is influencing him on the world stage. As radical as that sounds, there are reason to raise this question. Certainly no other President has hurt US interest, and just the US in general, more than Trump, and he's a fanboy of Putin.
We've noted it elsewhere, but we've been worried about a Chinese strike on Taiwan in the near future. The combination of the failed Iran War and Trump's other actions make that inevitable . The question is whether that will come this Fall, or next Spring.
September 4, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
In an attack Ukraine is an intentional Russian signal to the United States, Russia hit a Coca Cola plant in a drone strike.
Speaker of the House Mike Johnson has killed a House vote on Lindsey Graham’s Russia sanctions bill which passed the Senate in July, stating “We have to build consensus around that final product".
Oh, um, . . . not hat doesn't look a little weird. . . . and doesn't raise any questions, um, like Дональд Трамп — агент России?
What is it with this administration and Russia? Why is Дональд Трамп a Russian asset? Just stupidity and a like for flashy gold things?
September 20, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
Ukraine launched a massive drone raid on targets in the Moscow region.
September 22, 2026
Pakistan v. Afghanistan
Pakistan conducted air raids into Afghanistan yesterday.
October 1, 2026
US in Iraq
The U.S. is now completely out of Iraq.
Related threads:
Last edition:
Republican Senator Eric Schmitt accuses Jack Smith of being a "dirtbag" and accuses him of being where he wasn't, complete with blown-up text messages.
I'm not a sports fan, and apparently Schmitt isn't either, as he confused the teams. Amy Klobuchar, whose father was a sports writer hands Schmitt his head.
Schmitt has not apologized. Failing to apologize under these circumstances would make Schmitt a Dirtbag who henceforth should be known as Eric "Dirtbag" Schmitt, the Dirtbag from Wisconsin who is a dirtbag.
Apologize Schmitt.
Schmitt was the AG for Wisconsin where he must have excelled in such stunning repertoire in the courtroom. I'm amazed that some courtroom drama hasn't used "oh yeah!, well you're a dirtbag!"
In other news, in King Donny's royal decree attempting to rename Artificial Intelligence "Super Intelligence", as he has the vocabulary of a 5th grader, United States is misspelled.
Last edition:
Autarky is the economic concept of producing everything a nation consumes within its own borders. It's been tried numerous times, and inevitably leads at best to high prices and deprivation. At worst, it results in warfare.
Autarky was the official economic model of the Nazi Party after German economist Hjalmar Schacht joined the party in 1926 and after Gregor Strasser was ousted from party influence.* Nazi Germany provides a perfect example of how it doesn't work. Germany was a major industrial power leading up to, during and after World War Two (it still is), but it could never produce enough of anything for its own economy, even in peacetime. Moreover, it didn't have the raw materials to supply all it did produce. It imported 20% of its food supply in the early 1930s, and by the late 1930s the Nazis had only managed to boost that to 83%.
The solution was simple.
What the Germans did have, they could just seize from neighboring countries through war, and then either kill off the native population or subjugate it. That's exactly what it attempted to do. It pursued that murderously in Poland and the Soviet Union, and through vassal states in the form of France, Romania and Spain. Where that proved to be impossible. . . for the time being, it used bullying and threats, such as in regard to Sweden.
Even at that, it was never able to do it.
That seems to be to some extent what Donald Trump is advocating right now.
If we were playing hardball, all we'd do is say we're going to do no trading with Canada. If we did no trading with Canada would save $90 billion.
We could do tremendous good for ourselves by just not trading with countries.. We lose with Mexico $195 billion a year. They have nothing that we have to have, I mean. Hot tamales, tomatoes, a couple of things
Trump seems to believe that by closing the economic border with Canada and Mexico, and everyone else, unless they essentially become vassal states, the US can simply go it alone and not be harmed. Where it's obvious that won't work, we'll force acquisition, as we have now done in Venezuela and keep threatening to do with Greenland.
This is immoral, and stupid.
You'd think that a guy who went to Wharton would have a basic grasp of economics. Open economic borders, truly open economic borders, make countries rich, not poor. That doesn't mean that there's never a place for tariffs, including for protectionism, but it's generally a bad idea.
What makes for more sense is for the United States, Mexico, and Canada, to have a seamless economy with no tariffs at all. The US and Canada had a nearly duty free relationship prior to Trump, save for the infamous very high ones on dairy, poultry, and egg products. Those latter tariffs were absurd, but the US also has absurd tariffs in the agricultural sector. The US relationship with Mexico is, right now, duty free.
An absolute lack of tariffs is how it should be between the three major North American economies. Only an an economic ignoramus would disrupt that.
And only an immoral person would advocate taking the oil of another nation that is providing it under the gun. The US has been an oil addict for a century, but was showing signs of getting off the stuff. Trump, with his "it's always the 1950s" mindset can't seem to get out of that.
Trump should really know better. Wharton has a reputation as one of the best, maybe the best, business school in the country. He owes us an explanation, which he seems to be incapable of articulating, for his idiotic economic views. Wharton, and I'm serious about this, does as well. I know one Wharton graduate personally, and he is brilliant. But the example of Donald Trump is to weird to explain. For that matter, the example of Wyoming's Chuck Gray, who is an absolute Trump sycophant, is as well.
We need a combination of supreme moral sensitivity and economic knowledge. Economically ignorant moralism is as objectionable as morally callous economism. Ethics and economics are two equally difficult subjects, and while the former needs discerning and expert reason, the latter cannot do without humane values.
Wilhelm Röpke, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market
September 8, 2026
Retaliatory Canadian tariffs took place today with duties ranging from 15% to 50% across hundreds of U.S. products worth a total CA$27.6 billion, including dairy, agricultural equipment, paper, household appliances and electronics.
This will hurt Canadian consumer through increased cost to them, and American producers due to decreased demand.
Cont:
And as this wasn't enough, 5he United States is banning the import of some dairy products motorcycles and most alcoholic beverages from Canada.
This is rank stupidity. Peter Navarro ought to be sent to kindergarten and Wharton declared a clown college.
So, if you can, go out and buy a Can Am motorcycle and some Crown Royal.
Cont:
U.S. wholesale inflation hits 5.4% annually in August 2026.
More good news from the Trump administration.
September 11, 2026
Lame duck defeated state senator Bob Ide used the Hilltop disaster to say something monumentally stupid.
Hilltop Bank Shutdown Just Confirms Why Wyoming Needs Gold, Lawmaker Says
Bob, that's stupid.
September 15, 2026
Oil everywhere is up over $100/bbl and set to rise.
Prices at the pump are at record highs.
This appears to be set to get extremely bad.
September 16, 2026
The Fed raised interest rates, contrary to the wish of King Donald.
cont:
If we buy $2 billion worth of bananas from Brazil, we’re actually losing $2 billion. So if we stop eating bananas, we actually save $2 billion.
September 24, 2026
The Secretary of Agriculture reports that if you don't like beef prices, you can switch to chicken or pork.
That's frankly quite true, and it's a thing that producers need to worry about. Pork was the primary meat for most Americans up until the post Civil War era. Once people make a major shift in diet, they tend to stick with it.
Also regarding meat, the USDA is recalling 167,000 lbs of uninspected beef, pork and goat meat.
On all of this, the meat prices would be easy to blame on Trump, as the Wharton School of Business seems to be economically incompetent. This, however, is largely due to other factors, although I don't know how to explain the inspection glitch.
One thing that will impact the price of meat. . .and everything else, is the price of fuel. Indeed, after a year that featured record cattle prices, for those who had cattle to sell, profits are now being lost to diesel fuel.
A common cry out there in the hinterlands right now is to impose an export ban on diesel fuel. Such a ban was in place from 1975 to 2015. It's really debated what lifting the ban would do. Midwest GOP candidates started crying for it recently, but Wyoming's Congressional representation opposes it. That doesn't tell us much, however, as Wyoming's delegation probably wouldn't oppose a proposal to nuke the state.
Anyhow, Trump indicated support for a temporary ban, and then energy secretary Chris Wright walked it back, which is extremely interesting, particularly as farmers in the Midwest are now having real second thoughts about King Donald now that they realize he's fucking them with his policies, and not other people they didn't car about.
September 29, 2026
The Trump ban on the importation of Canadian alcohol, dairy and motorcycles, comes into effect today.
The ban is moronic.
Trump rolled back fuel efficiency standards on automobiles, as he's an ancient fool about to die and lives in the past in many ways.
And, on fuel, this item:
Wyoming has always had some progressive and farsighted people working behind the scenes while, at the same time, the troglodyte faction of the GOP, particularly strongly represented in the Wyoming Freedom Caucus From The South seek to believe it's 1861.
Electric vehicles are coming, and diesel at $6.00 will help revive interest in them. The comments on this, of course, are "dem new fangle aut o mobiles won't replace the horse", basically. EVs are coming, like it or not, and when the Trump administration is in the outhourse of history where it so richly belongs, they'll significantly revive.
September 30, 2026
And with the following item, we'll close out this installment:
Footnotes
*Strasser was permanently ousted from influence in the Night of the Long Knives.
Schacht is interesting in that he was never a Nazi himself and was involved in prewar anti Nazi plots. He served in the German government nonetheless.
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