Not a profile in courage.

From Twitter.

First:

Larry Wolfe@WYWolfe

So Barrasso and Lummis have joined the Pro Putin camp. Lummis makes the same tired argument that we can’t afford it. What is Barrasso’s excuse for abandoning his boss McConnell and instead lining up with the far right fringe of Senate crackpots?

8:51 PM · Apr 24, 2024

It is an excellent question, although probably rhetorical, as we all know why Sen. Barrasso did this, he's running to the right of himself to keep his job.  The Wyoming GOP has fallen to the populists, who are not conservatives, and who are definitely isolationist without a grasp on foreign policy.  We all know that.  And a lot of us know that Barrasso doesn't believe a lot of the things he claims to, which makes this situation, frankly, sad, but for the fact that when Russia quits bleeding Ukraine, if Ukraine doesn't win, American and European blood will flow next.

Barrasso knows that, too.

I used to see Barrasso frequently as a passenger in airplanes.  When I did, I always left him alone, even though I slightly know him, and knew his late wife a bit better.  I've wanted to speak to him, however, as I frankly can't believe that he believes a lot of the things he states, and I've wanted to tell him that.

Somebody did just that, however.   

Cleaned up to take out the awkward nature of Twitter:

Replying to @WYWolfe

drew@drew53430308

Was lucky enough to fly DEN-CPR with JB back in February, the VERY day they failed to move the bill. We were seated close to each other, and had to wait on the jetway in Casper for our carry-ons. So I introduce myself as “Lt Col so-and-so” and offer condolences about his wife’s passing, but then I mentioned the day’s failure, and how the rest of the week was a work session, hard to do from home…

I told him that the innocent civilians in Ukraine needed help, they needed our help to end the rapes and murders. I explained that America doesn’t abandon her allies on the battlefield. I explained that then, that very night, with a few phone calls he could fix it…

I looked him in the eye and told him he was one of the most powerful men on Earth, and that he alone could save lives, starting right then. I told him millions of innocents were counting on him, that this was his moment…

JB thanked me for my service, explained this was all JD Vance’s fault, and there was nothing he could do. Told me I didn’t understand how things work. I replied that I’d flown back enough dead and maimed kids to learn a lifetime’s worth of foreign policy.

Well, good for Lt. Col. Drew. 

Postscript:

There's good reason to believe that Barrasso is fighting for his political career this election against a surprisingly strong Reid Rasner.  Barrasso has had those in the electorate who were vaguely discontent with him for some time.  In retrospect, a lot of that opposition came from people who believe the "Uni Party" brand of nonsense in which anything the government spends is evidence that you are a RINO, unless of course the money is spent subsidizing highways, which is good.  The same people, of course, are hugely opposed to balancing the budget, although they don't realize it, as they'd have to be taxed at a fair rate, which they aren't in favor of.

Anyhow, with the strong rise of populism in the state Barrasso is in surprising trouble as he has a track records that isn't populist, but conservative.  Those who didn't like him in the first place trend that way, and the overall state GOP is now on a populist warpath, the fall of Liz Cheney being evidence of that.  So Barrasso is now campaigning as a populist.

The thing he might be missing is that for a long time there have been Republican moderates and true conservatives, the people that populists, who aren't real Republicans but rather are Dixiecrats, who weren't hugely fond of Barrasso either.  Dr. Barrasso also knew that, which was why he was pretty careful, usually, but not always, to take carefully thought out conservative positions.  Many in this same class weren't hugely satisfied with Barrasso, if not outright dissatisfied with him, and were held back from voting for a Democratic candidate only due to certain issues, such as right to life issues.  Irrespective of that, in 2018, the last time he ran, Barrasso take at the pools declined from a 2012 76% to 67%, which is the same percentage that Donald Trump took in 2016.  Democrat Gary Trauner took 30%.

Trauner ran for elective office several times and failed to win, but he was respected and stuck around in the public eye for a while after the 2018 election.  He's not involved in politics anymore, but his race is illustrative.  Barrasso had no real opposition in the primary, although some gadfly entrants did run.  This time he has real opposition.  Most of the old moderate Democrats became Republicans in the state long ago and by this time may be too disgusted by these recent developments to even vote in the primary, and those who do may abstain from voting in this race.  That might push things over the top for Rasner, as at the end of the day, Barrasso is at least partially counting on conservatives and moderate Republicans who aren't thrilled with him right now to vote for him.

And while the winner of that race will win, whomever it is may not have the level of support that they have in the past.  30% of the electorate was voting against him already, which was worse than Cheney did in 2020 and worse than Hageman did in 2022.

Related thread:

The 2024 Election, Part XVII. Standing on their feet or crawling on their knees.

The Baggage Train.

Going back to that WyoFile editorial, one of the replying letters stated this:

Sorry Kerry, buy you couldn’t be more wrong about Harriet Hageman – you made the mistake of trying to predict how she will be judged in history on one issue which will rapidly decrease in importance as Trump goes down in flames.

The only way to predict how Harriet will be viewed in her new roll as a Representative is to do an in-depth review or her substantial record in the courts – particularly the Federal court system. Its my understanding she has been one of the most successful and foremost natural resource attorneys in the United States and has argued cases at the highest level. To understand her experience in this field of natural resources one must recognize there are less than 10 really experienced individuals in Wyoming who have proven over the years their expertise in the field of natural resources. They include Jill Morrison, Doug Thompson, Ken Hamilton, Angus Theumer, Dan Hielig, Karen Budd Falen, Harriet Hageman and maybe a few more. Harriet is near the top of this distinguished list of competence.

The bottom line is that Harriet can be expected to be one of the most knowledgeable natural resource experts to ever be elected to Congess. If she equals or exceeds her past performance she will have a major impact on natural resource issues in the house. It will be important to see which committees she is appointed to and whether she can put together a staff of truly talented experienced natural resource experts.

Her unique experience as a natural resource attorney positions her to write amendments to legislation, existing laws which could redefine the ESA, Clean Water Act, Wild Horse and Burro Act, Wilderness designations, etc. and do this in a House of Representatives controlled by the Republications at least for the next 2 years. Never under estimate a person who has proven over and over that she is all about competence, competence, competence. The Donald Trump thing will wilt in the very near future and we’ll see Harriet in the legislative setting instead of the court room setting. Will she be as successful in Congress as she has been in the courts. Based on past performance, I think Harriet will be as influential.

This taps into something that's been bothering me throughout this election, or rather, maybe several somethings.

Those are; 1) when does "being a lawyer" credit you as a candidate, and when does it discredit you, in the public eye, 2) does the propaganda on lawyers match the reality, 3) does anyone really believe that having been a successful lawyer in private practice means you're going to be a big wheel in Congress, and 4) if Hageman's record is correctly cited, why would we support it?

First, a disclaimer, which I've noted before. As noted here, I knew Hageman slightly at one time.  Early on, because of her circle of friends, I frankly assumed she was a left wing Democrat.  At that time she was shy and hardly spoke, so my assumption was probably way off, but if it was way off, she was a unique personality in that her friends must have been way outside of her political beliefs.

That actually credits a person.

Indeed, one of the people like me, who had friends that were in her circle of friends, is mentioned in the letter above.  And that person definitely has very left wing beliefs and is married to one of Hageman's school year friends who also have very left wing beliefs, at least based on their views at the time, and their careers since.

Interesting.

It's additionally interesting as that person would most likely be on the opposite end of the spectrum on all the issues listed.

That brings up the point that lawyers careers tend to reflect the work that was available when they started off.  It doesn't necessarily reflect their personal views.  In the case of the person I'm thinking of above, it does, as their choices in career paths would reflect that.  In at least one other person listed above, it probably does as well, although they took a big diversion from their pathway at one time.

Hageman?  

Well, I don't know.  She did seem to develop, from what little I know of it, a career that focused a lot on water law at one time and then branched into something else, that being the representation of far right interests on various land and environmental issues.  I know of her representing a super wealthy import on a house construction case, however. Perhaps that was a favor of some kind.

Most lawyers actually are at least a little left of center.  Even the self-proclaimed right wing lawyers I know tend to actually be left of center, a little.  I've met a few really right wing lawyers, but in those cases one was a fellow who was so wealthy he really didn't have to do anything, and who came from a very conservative background (I also know a very left wing lawyer who was so wealthy the lawyer didn't actually have to do anything).

Of the three really right wing lawyers I've known over the years, two of them were from, you guessed it, somewhere else.

Is Hageman really right wing?  Well, she is now, and has no choice but to be.  Her father was a right wing legislator, and she's from Ft. Laramie, so if she is, she probably came by it naturally.  If she originally wasn't, she is now, and she has to be.

Which will make her irrelevant in Congress.

Which, in an out-of-order sort of way, brings us to number 3 on our list "3) does anyone really believe that having been a successful lawyer in private practice means you're going to be a big wheel in Congress"?

I can't think of any examples.  Can you?

Let's start with the letter writers citations here:

The bottom line is that Harriet can be expected to be one of the most knowledgeable natural resource experts to ever be elected to Congess.

Well, setting aside Herbert Hoover, maybe.

Hoover was a mining engineer. 

If she equals or exceeds her past performance she will have a major impact on natural resource issues in the house. I

How so?  Legal work is presenting your case to a jury or judge, and in this line of country, probably mostly to a judge.

That, frankly, doesn't mean squat in terms of arguing policy in Congress. 

The House of Representatives has 435 members, who all think of themselves as being the judges.  And unlike a real judge, they aren't, and don't have to be, constrained by what the law is and, while they should be constrained by the facts, they have never been.

They also all think themselves equal in their expertise to you, and really don't give a rats ass what your pre Congress career is.

Put another way, does anyone really think that AoC is going to think, "wow, Harriet, you know so much, I'm going your way!"  Or, for that matter, that Keven McCarthy is going to think "I struggled for years and sold my soul to become Speaker of the House, but I'm deferring to you Harriet".

Not bloody likely.

Particularly, and this is important for Wyomingites to realize, the House represents the population of the United States, which is about 70% aligned against what Harriet is seems to be for, based on her record.

Which takes us to this:

Her unique experience as a natural resource attorney positions her to write amendments to legislation, existing laws which could redefine the ESA, Clean Water Act, Wild Horse and Burro Act, Wilderness designations, etc. and do this in a House of Representatives controlled by the Republications at least for the next 2 years. 

Bar har har har!

Uh huh. The House is Republican, barely. 

The Senate, isn't.

The Oval Office, isn't.

You have to be delusional to believe that any legislation is coming out of the House with a right wing point of view on the ESA, the Clean Water Act, the Wild Horse and Burro Act, or Wilderness designations in the next two years.  

No freakin' way.

And if the last several elections cycles have shown, the rules about when houses switch are now broken.  If Donald Trump continues to whip the ass cart towards the cliff, the chances are just as good that you end up with a Democratic House and Senate in 2024.

Particularly if the GOP Rockettes in the form of Marjorie "Jewish Space Laser" Taylor Green and Lauren "Insurrection Barbie" continue to draw so much press.  Far right House female  House figures look more evil female villains in Marvel Comics right now that serious policymakers.  If you are a far right angry congresswoman, and that's the presentation that Hageman has given so far, firmly riding the Trump Ass Cart, do you really think you'll be taken as a serious potential policymaker?

Indeed, does any Wyoming politician have that street cred right now?  Senator Barrasso did at one time, but the GOP has seemed to use him recently to personally blame Joe Biden for gas prices when they go up, but not credit him when they go down.  Lummis might be faring the best right now, and she's clearly working on breaking away from the Wyoming GOP, with her sights set on a cabinet position in a future GOP administration she figures won't be Trump's.

Indeed, how the next two years go, with Lummis acting independently and Hageman beholden to Trump, will be interesting. 

And frankly, most Wyomingites aren't haters of Wilderness. Out on the street, it's easy to find Republican Wyomingites who would add more. That's an upper level GOP thing and one of the many examples of how they are out of sink with the electorate. Same with the Clean Water Act.  You can get visceral reactions to the ESA mostly because the right has hated it since day one. 

The Wild Horse & Burro Act matters to ranchers, and I don't like it, but most people don't think about it at all.

All of which is to say that I don't expect any Congressional action at all in these areas.  In 2024, the Wild Horse and Burro Act, the ESA, etc., will all be there, and Harriet Hageman's opinions on them will not have mattered one bit.

Which covers not only topic 3, but topic 4.

What about topic 2?

Well, maybe, in her case. The New York Times supported that view, that she was a lawyer who worked against environmental regulation for decades, and they're surely no fans of Hageman.

Well, what about 1.  Funny how that works.  If somebody's a lawyer, and their views seem to agree with yours, that means a lot. If they're a lawyer, and their views differ, they're a dirty bastard.  The High Country News, before she was a candidate or even close to being one, in 2009, stated the same thing, more or less.  So that claim seems to be correct.

But again, does that credit you?

Witness the Secretary of State election.  Chuck Gray complained that Tara Nethercott was a lawyer and was only campaigning for the salary, an absurd proposition. First thing he does his hire a lawyer to be on his staff.

Weird how that worked.

Which gets back to the letter writers point that we don't know how we're judged in history, until we're judged in history.  His point is that Hageman may overcome having a front row seat on the careering ass cart due to her background and skills.

And maybe she will.

But in order to do that, she'll have to get out of the ass cart quick, as otherwise she's just going to be wrecked baggage. And that's not an easy thing to.

"Tail Gunner" Joe McCarthy.  Richard Milhouse Nixon.

Two conservatives who didn't react, when they could have, both of whom might have been very much differently remembered than they are today.  By the time that McCarthy hauled in the Army in front of the House Committee on Un American Affairs, the bloom was off the Communist under every bush rose.  He should have known that and wrapped things up, stating they'd gone as far as they could, and have gotten back to things later. Instead, he rode that wagon over a cliff.  

Nixon should have exposed the Watergate burglars. He didn't order them to actually do anything. If he had, he'd have completed his second term, destroyed the negative evidence against him, and be remembered as the President who got us out of Vietnam.

Part of taking trips into dangerous territory with the baggage train is knowing when to leave it.

The 2022 Election Part XIV. The Results.

November 8, 2022

And now the results are coming in.

Chuck Gray, ascending to Secretary of State, mounted on the Myth of Stolen Election.

The votes are cast, the counting is underway.  Here are the results as they come in.

16:42.

Governor.

Mark Gordon has won, as everyone knew that he had well before today.

November 9, 2022

The proverbial morning after.

U.S. House of Representatives

Harriet Hageman wins with 132,172 votes. 47,241 were cast for her Democratic opponent, Lynette Gray Bull, who frankly underperformed in my view. Towards the end of her campaign, Gray Bull began to raise her ethnicity in a fairly aggressive manner, which likely didn't help her in a state where such things generally do not win votes.

Governor.

Mark Gordon has won, as noted last night.

This race was emblematic of the current political sickness in the state. Gordon isn't a bad Governor, and is no doubt better than some we've had in the now somewhat distant past.  But the Democrats couldn't even find a real contender.  Yes, they ran somebody, but that's about all you can say. 

His real opponents, therefore, were from his own party in the primary.

Gordon took the office in the general election with over 143,000 votes, with his Democratic opponent taking about 30,000.   The Libertarian took around 8,000 votes, less than the 11,000 write ins that were cast.

Secretary of State.

Chuck Gray, as noted above, ascends to this office, with 147,368.  He had no opponent, but 13,574 votes were for write ins.

State Auditor

Kristi Racines won with over 161,000 votes against no opponent.

State Treasurer

Curt Meier won with 159,000 votes against no opponent.

State Superintendent of Public Instruction

Megan Degenfelder took the office against Serge Maldonado, who barely campaigned.  The vote counts were 142,511 to 43,251, which means that Maldonado did nearly as well as Gray Bull in this race.

Constitutional Amendment A

This amendment received 101,000 votes, and therefore passed, but not by a comfortable margin.  In order to pass, an amendment must receive a yes vote based on the total number of cast ballots, which was 198,000. So this based, but barely.

Constitutional Amendment B

This bad idea failed, making it the only bright spot in the election.  115,000 people voted no.  I thought this likely to fail, but only for not getting enough yes votes based on total ballots cast, not on an outright "no" vote.

Other Races

Locally, two of the "Mom's For Liberty" were elected to the school board.  One was not.

The 1 Cent and Lodging Taxes passed easily.

Nationwide

Donald Trump, who isn't running for anything, actually gave a victory speech last night.

A "red wave" (no, not a Communist wave, which would make more sense as a "red" analogy) was expected to take place, but it doesn't really appear to be happening in my view. The Senate will likely remain Democratic. The House is likely to go over to the GOP as expected.

So we'll get split government from a government again.   The Democrats have themselves mostly to blame for this as they have, as per usual, been singularly inept at getting their message across or acting quickly on anything.

United States Senate

While it's still too early to tell, it appears that the Democrats have retained control of the Senate.

John Fetterman beat out Dr. Oz in a particularly odd race in Pennsylvania. Fetterman goes on to the Senate.

The much followed Georgia race was too close to call and appears to be certain to go into a runoff between two candidates, which is silly, but there you have it.

JD Vance won his bid for the Senate in Ohio. The author of Hillbilly Elegy had turned Trumpist during the campaign, which for a while appeared likely to sink him.

House of Representatives

Also, too early to tell, but it looks as if the Republicans will take the House of Representatives.

While it's too early to tell, it appears that Lauren Boebert may lose her race in Colorado, and is losing at this time.

Marjorie Taylor Greene was reelected.

Cont:

A Reuters headline:

Race for U.S. Congress is tight, no Republican 'red wave'

At this point, given the last several elections, it ought to be abundantly clear that polls are no longer accurate.

Cont:

It appears that Trump endorsed Kelly Tshibaka will narrowly defeat incumbent Alaska Senator Lisa Murkowski in a state that uses ranked choice voting, so both of them are competing against the Democratic candidate as well.  They're pretty much neck and neck, which shows that in this instance this operated in favor of the Trumpite challenger.

Where it didn't was with the Congressional race in which newly elected Democrat Mary Peltola easily defeated two Republican challengers, including Sarah Palin.

Cont:

Reuters take:

Control of both the House and Senate is up in the air. There’s still a lot we don’t know, but one thing we do know is that Republicans did not have the night they were hoping for. 

Here are six takeaways:

 

1️⃣ The Senate is undecided and will take a while to know. Democrats flipped Pennsylvania and Republicans now need a net gain of two pickups to take the Senate. 

2️⃣ Republicans underperformed in the House, and there’s going to be a lot of finger-pointing. They're looking at a possible net gain of only about eight seats, which is on the low end of forecasters’ projections. This could threaten Republican House Leader Kevin McCarthy’s plans to be speaker of the House.

3️⃣ There’s also going to be blame directed at Trump. The former president weighed in heavily on these elections, but a lot of his candidates underperformed, raising questions about how effective his brand is in purple states.

4️⃣ Florida might be the new Ohio. The state that decided the 2000 election and has been a swing state since is looking like it’s firmly in GOP hands now with wins by Ron DeSantis and Marco Rubio.

5️⃣ Democrats appear to slip again with Latino voters. Despite a decent night overall, exit polls showed Democrats won about 60% of Latinos overall, down from 65% in 2020, which was already considered a decline.

6️⃣ The cross-currents of this election between abortion rights and inflation were real. Abortion rights clearly fired up voters who cast ballots for Democrats and helped stem a Republican wave. Abortion rights appear to have succeeded in the four states where they were on the ballot, including in Michigan and Kentucky.

Cont:

Well, it's the end of the day, and we still don't know if we'll have a Republican Congress, a Democratic Congress, or a split.

One thing we do know. Donald J. Trump's association with the Republican Party caused it to underperform at an epic level. While some Trump backed candidates such as J. D. Vance or Harriet Hageman owe their positions to Trumpism, others went down in defeat due to their association with him.  By and large, Trump was a liability to the party.

It'll make no difference in the GOP. While this wake-up call should finally be one, it won't be.  What may finally be is a 2024 Presidential Election defeat, something that is now all but certain if Trump runs in 2024.

Ironically, perhaps, Wyoming has gone full bore personality worship into Trump at the exact same time that the Trump brand promises irrelevance.  If the House is Democratic, Hageman will be a nullity.  If it's Republican, she'll be a near nullity.

The Fort Worth Star Telegram posed this question:

Republicans, you can follow Donald Trump into the abyss or win elections. Choose wisely

The Star Telegram is right.  A sane GOP, or rather one that had a modicum of courage, would now purge the Trumpites.  Keven McCarthy would be sent to do nothing. Hageman would be ignored.  Ted Cruz would have his batteries removed and become a depowered robot.

But it doesn't seem to be exhibiting courage in regard to Trump.  Rather, it continues to fear him, even though now the last illusion of Trumpism has been stripped away.  He has no influence with the real voters, outside of Wyoming.

Speaking of a candidate associated with Trumpism, Lauren Boebert, at the time of this posting, trails her opponent by 62 votes, showing that in fact, every vote does count.

Oregon has passed a very strict firearms purchasing bill requiring a state permit that also includes the requirement that a person pass an approved class before obtaining a permit.  While I'd be unable to say this with certainty, this would appear to be the strictest purchase statute in the US.  It will undoubtedly be tested in court, and my guess is that it will fail to past Constitutional muster.

The statute barely passed.

November 10, 2022

Wyoming's turnout in the election was the lowest since 2014.

I wondered if this might occur, due to so many races being determined in the Primary.

It looks as if control of the Senate is going to end up with the Georgia runoff, again.

The truly amazing thing is we don't know who won the House yet.  That shows how massively in error the "Republican Wave" predictions were.

Kevin McCarthy, anticipating that the GOP will get enough seats in the House to be the majority party there, has announced his bid to be Speaker of the House.  Given the massive underperformance of Republicans in the election, combined with McCarthy's hostility to some Republicans who didn't tow the "ignore what happened on January 6" line, and his cozying up post disaster to Trump, its likely he'll receive competition.

November 13, 2022

In no small part thanks to Donald Trump, the Senate will remain in Democratic hands.

And in no small part due to Donald Trump, who will control the House remains up in the air.  Trump managed to potentially buck a decades long trend and it's possible, at this point, that the Democrats may remain in control of the House after the midterm election.

The Great Wave. . . what didn't happen.

Kari Lake, MAGA candidate for Arizona Governor, appears to have lost in a tight race and is now attacking the vote counting and even asserting that people did not vote for her opponent.

November 15, 2022

Katie Hobbs beat extreme election denier Kari Lake for the position of Arizona's Governor, giving Arizona its first Democratic governor in 14 years.

Lake stated regarding the results, "Arizonans know BS when they see it" and, in spite of what she apparently meant, it would appear at least over half of them do.

November 16, 2022

And the GOP, as of tonight, has 218 seats in the House, with the Democrats at 211.  There still remains races which are not decided, but this means the GOP controls, barely, the House.

And this thread now closes.

November 24, 2022

Well, maybe not quite closes.

Lisa Murkowski retained her Senate seat in Alaska, beating a Trump backed opponent.  This seat remains in GOP hands, as it was known it would, but it followed the general tone of the election in rejecting Trumpism, contrary to the direction in Wyoming.

Mary Peltola retained her seat in the House for Alaska. Peltola is a Democrat.

Alaska, readers will recall, went to a new, more democratic, system of choosing candidates this year which operates to lessen the impact of party affiliation. Wyoming has considered adopting such a system.

Right now, with some races still not decided, the balance in the House is 213 Democrats to 220 Republicans.

December 6, 2022

The election is now over.  Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, in a special runoff election in Georgia, defeated Republican challenger Herschel Walker.

With this, the Democrats actually gained in the Senate in an off year.

Last Prior Editions:

The 2022 Election Part XIII. Some pre election predictions.

The 2022 Election Part XII. The General Election Race, Edition 2.

After the Election. The Wyoming 2022 Election Post Mortem. Part 1.

Blog Mirror: Did the Pittsburgh Steelers Save the U.S. Senate?

Uncle Mike takes a look at the recent election:

Did the Pittsburgh Steelers Save the U.S. Senate?

Takeaways, so far, from the 2022 General Election.

Early takeaways.

1.  Poll models are existentially wrong.

There is no longer any reason to pretend otherwise.

For weeks prior to elections, we read of poll results. They were wrong in 2022, wrong in 2020, and wrong in 2016.

They're wrong.

Something is amiss in them, one thing simply being that younger generations don't really care to talk to pollsters.

This might be, overall, a good thing.

2.  Conservatism retains a strong appeal, but Trump doesn't.

Edmund Burke.

Trump caused the Republicans to lose the House and Senate in 2018.  He lost the Presidency in 2020, and never secured the popular vote in the first place ever.

The midterm election always sees a return of the party of power, something that may be a good thing, democratically, or not, but it's a fact.  This year there's real doubt that will happen, and Trump is the number one reason why.

Trump, whose appeal to anyone completely escapes me, loves Trump only the way that Trump and his acolytes can, and he's going to announce next week that he's running for the Oval Office.  In normal times, the GOP would send a delegation to Mar-a-Lago, invite Trump to go fishing and require Lindsey Graham to go along to listen to Trump's weird, weird diction in the same way that Uncle Colm is used by the girls to talk to the police in Derry Girls.  But these aren't normal times, so he's going to go ahead and run and the Republicans, including Mitch McConnell and Kevin McCarthy, will fall right in line.

An opportunity exists here for other Republicans to take advantage of this and push for the Presidency.  The problem with that, however, is Trump.

The ultimate irony here is that the elections from 2016 forward have demonstrated that there is a strong base for a conservative political party, including a conservative political party that includes populism.  People are, in many areas, voting culturally, and voting culturally for a return to Western values. There's nothing wrong with that, and the concept that these have been under attack by the left is correct.

But linking that movement, to Trump, will kill it.

3.  Wyoming has become the Post Reconstruction South.

Eh?

Bear with me.

In 1860, as we all know, the Southern states attempted to leave the United States and form their own country over the issue of slavery.

Most Southern whites, throughout the South, were yeomen.  Small independent farmers.  

The Civil War was about one issue and one issue only, race based slavery.  But slavery impacted everything in the South, most particularly its economy.

It's sometimes claimed, and indeed has been recently, that only a small percentage of Southerners owned slaves prior to the Civil War.  I recall hearing that myself when in school, and even recently apparently somebody in the Internet claimed that only 1% of Southerners owned slaves in 1860.  A pretty detailed analysis of that shows that's actually incorrect, and a whopping 30.8% of free Southern families did, a pretty high number.  You can knock the percentage down by addressing only individuals, rather than families, but frankly that's unfair and inaccurate in an era prior to female suffrage.  And it's also been knocked down by including the entire Southern population, but you can't really count the enslaved in this analysis and have it make any sense.

At any rate, the reason that we note this is that about 69% of Southern families didn't own slaves, but that 30.8% that did dominated the culture and the region's economics.  Owning slaves was thought to be a necessity by planters, the large industrial farming class, just as serfs were in fact necessary to the feudal system.  The planter class absolutely dominated the economics and the politics of the South, even though the majority of Southerners were not in the class and in fact, as noted, were yeoman.

Not all yeoman were poor, as is sometimes claimed, and some of them owned slaves as well.  But the planters, who were the wealthy class in the South, completely dominated its economy and politics.  It would not be proper to take a Marxist view of this and assume that they dominated it simply because they were wealthy, but their wealth had the practical impact of making them the only really educated class and the only class that had time for leisure in the sense that Josef Pieper has written about.  This meant that their own self-interest became the interest of the entire region and were regarded as such.  When barefoot Southern farmers hit the road to fight against the North in the Civil War, they were pretty convinced that their interest and the planters were the same.

They were not.

That became pretty evident during Reconstruction, but the domination of the planter class actually never waned.  White Southern yeomanry had more in common, economically, with the recently freed slaves than they did with white planters. For a time it briefly looked like they'd act accordingly.  And during Reconstruction, they found themselves nearly violently at odds with the planter class.  Yeoman who had always made use, for example, of the woods as commons for the grazing of cattle and for hunting found themselves suddenly fenced and locked out, and nearly resorted to arms over it.

To a degree, what prevented that from really developing is that while the yeomanry did not feel itself aligned with the planters at first, planter propaganda, the nature of being occupied by the North, and the shared experience of the Civil War won them over against their own interests.  The monied and powerful classes of the South backed the concept of "The Lost Cause", a noble struggle for "Southern Rights", which wasn't about slavery at all, but about something else, never mind that it couldn't be rationally defined as it didn't exist.  All Southern officers were noble, all the enlisted men stalwart loyalists, sacrificing themselves to the cause.  The myth lasted so long that the dedication of Stone Mountain in the 1970s could still be regarded in the Oval Office as a noble thing, and not a monument to treason.  Southern yeoman remained in second class status and following Reconstruction were basically heavily marginalized along with Southern blacks.  The entire region declined into second class economic status as it clung to an old economy benefiting mostly the already wealthy.  Education became second rate. 

That all started to change during the Great Depression, but it really took into the 1970s for it to break.  We'll omit that part of the story, as that would be secondary to what we're looking at now.

Wyoming is now the New Post Reconstruction South.

How so?

Consider this.  Plantation economics had originally made the South one of the wealthiest parts of the United States.  Cotton actually was the second crop subject to the plantation system.  Tobacco was first, and tobacco made the south wealthy.  Cotton followed and added to that.  The North wasn't poor, but in the pre industrialized country, agriculture was king and the South had market agriculture, producing tobacco, cotton, and corn based alcohol, all for sale.  Nothing like it existed in the North.  Going into the Civil War, they still believed that this was the case.

It wasn't.

Wealth had moved to industry by 1860 and the North had taken advantage of it.  It was much more economically developed, and as a result, much more of the wealth had gone down hill to its population.  It also had an economy which acknowledged and accepted government assistance, which made for good roads and canals.  It was more affluent, better educated, and much better informed.  The South fooled itself into believing the opposite and entered into a war it couldn't win as a result.  After the wear, the class that had controlled that wealth maneuvered to keep it, and did so successfully, keeping the South in a state of existence that, but for slavery, closely mirrored that which had existed before the war.

So what does this have to do with Wyoming?

Quite a lot.

The original wealth of the South came from simple farmers, true yeoman, the class that Thomas Jefferson hoped thought necessary to democracy and hoped to see flourish in the country even though he was a planter. The conversion to a planter based economy took some time.

That's true of Wyoming, to a degree, as well.

The first European cultured people to enter Wyoming weren't Americans at all, but rather Quebecois.  French culture people were pretty prominent in the state early on, and it was really the fur industry they built that caused the early private fort system to come about.  The government followed in the 1840s following the Mexican War, when the Army first marched into the purchased Ft. Laramie in order to guard the trails to the Pacific Coast that were developing.  The first really Wyoming based economic endeavor to some about after trapping was the livestock industry, which didn't enter the state until the 1870s, for the most part.

But even as early as the 1880s petroleum was seen as the state's future.  By the 1890s, it was common for newspapers to put remote oil prospects on the front page, even as the livestock industry was dominating the actual economy and providing for most of the state's employment.  Coal had an even earlier appearance, being first mined by the Union Pacific railroad to fuel its trains.

It was really World War One, however, that gave Wyoming an oil extraction, and at that time refining, economy.  And much of that was locally centered.  Refineries sprung up all over the state in this time period.  Casper saw not only three refineries develop, but major structures as well. The Oil Exchange Building was completed in 1917.  The Pan American Building sometime after that.   The Ohio Building in the 1940s.  The Sinclair Building, now only a memory, was built during this time period as well. The big club, where all sorts of business deals were made, was The Petroleum Club.

So we based our wealth, after 1917, on the extractive industries.

We did nothing wrong whatsoever by doing that.

But times have really changed, and they're in trouble.  

We can't and won't accept that.

The US of 2022 isn't the US of 1917, or 1922, or even 1962, or 1982.  But we basically are looking back to 1982, or so, economically, culturally and politically to an era when things were better for us.  

And this requires us, apparently, to now believe in The Lost Cause.

At one time if you talked to Southerners, everybody's Civil War ancestor was a colonel of epic heroism, not a deserter from the Confederate armies, even though a huge number of Southern soldiers became just that.  And they didn't fight for slavery, but for their culture.

We haven't been able to adjust to the fact that Trump lost the popular vote, twice, so we now have that as our Lost Cause Myth.  The brilliant super genius "very good genes", as Trump would have it, didn't lose, the election was stolen.

Never mind the clear evidence that Trump was planning to steal the election prior to the election occurring.  Never mind the destruction of the U.S. Post Office as part of that.  Never mind the effort to undermine COVID voting protocols.  Now, listen to people like Chuck Gray and you'll learn that 10,000 mules were employed in a nefarious plot.

I don't know how many Wyomingites really believe that, but probably about the same number, percentage wise, of Southerners at one time that believed that Uncle Euclid was a Colonel in the Confederate Cavalry, and not a barefoot infantryman in who deserted.  There were likely always doubts.  But like Homer Stokes in Oh Brother! Where Art Thou, there are underlying issues that people really have in mind.  "That ain't my culture and heritage".

The ultimate problem is that this is going to, long term, marginalize us economically and politically.  Just like it did the Post Reconstruction South.

4.  Democracy can work for the left.

As we've noted elsewhere, the real starting point in the attack on American democracy was by the left going towards a Court oriented aristocracy.  If Americans wouldn't reform and usher in the new liberal era on their own, the Courts could rule and force them.

The left was pretty comfortable with that.

Now the Courts have stripped that role away from themselves and returned issues that never should have been determined solely by nine ancient people with Ivy League law degrees to the people, effectively telling them they'll just have to figure these things out for themselves.

And low and behold, they actually can.

And the election results are in!

By not listed - https://www.solidarity-party.org/, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=117648194

The results are now in and, suffice it to say, what a giant surprise.  

Contrary to all expectations, Wyoming's voters, demonstrating independence of thought, rejected the creeping descent into fascism that the GOP was exhibiting, and the squirrel ball left group think of the Democratic Party, and wrote in thoughtful candidates instead.

First and foremost was the rejection of Harriet Hageman, the Republican nominee for the House of Representatives, who displaced Liz Cheney on the ballot.  Rethinking the matter, voters elected Ernst Sepansky, a member of the American Solidarity Party.

"I'm surprised and honored" stated Sepansky.  "Shoot, I didn't even know that most people knew I was running" Sepansky said, taking a break from his role as a sheep herder.  "I'll have to find somebody to tend the sheep, but I'll be happy to go back to D.C.  After all, I'm already used to smelly unthinking group think".

Rumor had it that Sepansky's employer, noting Hageman had come from a ranch as she frequently stated, was going to ask her if she'd like to return to more benighted employment while he is in Washington D.C.

The Secretary of State's position, in turn, was taken by independent Amanda Feliciano.  Feliciano, presently a clerk in Harriet Hageman's law firm, stated; "look, it isn't as if Harriet or Chuck know how to file a @#$@#$ thing in real life.  I've been filing these @#$#$@ UCC 3's for decades.  Little Chucky can get a @#$#$ job for the first time in his life".  

An effort to interview Mr. Gray failed as he could not be located.  Sources indicate that he'd wandered away from Casper, fearful that this might mean he'd have to send out resumes for employment.

Results were similar down ballot, as voters rejected right wing Republican candidates for the legislature who had only recently secured their nominations.

Voters, coming out of their polling stations, gave an early clue as to what they were thinking.  

Bob Edsel, an oilfield worker in Casper, was interviewed at the gas station after voting.  He stated "Look, I was going to vote for the Republicans, but I was pulling 'Ol Betsy, my new lifted diesel D3500 into the gas station for the third time on the way to work, listening to ol' Dr. John on the YouTube talk about how Joe jacked up gas prices, when a Russian drone missile took the darned filling station out.  I gots to thinking that Dr. John might not really be right about those 'ol fuel prices".

Katerina DeSantos spoke to us at her café job.  "I'm opposed to abortion, but I’m worried about a lot of social issues otherwise.  I spoke to my GOP candidate and asked him why he was in favor of the death penalty for parking violations, and he said it was in the Constitution. That was stupid."

A similar view was expressed by Ernst Darbonski about the school board election.  "Mom's for Liberty?  Liberty my @#$#.  One of those gal's came by my house and told me that I'd be able to educate my children with a Christian world view, and when I said I was Ukrainian Orthodox she urged me to convert to Christianity.  Ugh".

Kent Allred, the interim Secretary of State, indicated that he would certify the results.  He was going to decline to, and came into the office packing heat, but a State Trooper, after warning him he couldn't come in armed, shot him.

"Dag nabbit", Allred stated, "I just wasn't fast enough on the draw."

Well. . . a person can always dream.

The 2022 Election Part XIII. Some pre election predictions.

The much anticipated "pro choice" vote that the pundits are predicting to roll in nationally, and Democrats are depending upon, will almost wholly fail to materialize.

Young voters, who the Democrats are also depending on, won't show up.

Hispanic voters will, but a lot more of them will vote Republican, reflecting social conservatism, than anticipated.

The much ballyhooed babble that things are so violent out there that we're living in The French Connection, won't persuade anyone to vote one way or another on anything.

Inflation will influence older voters on fixed incomes quite a bit in their vote.

The Republicans will probably gain the Senate, but not by much.

The Democrats will barely hand on to the House.

A little more long term.

Withing a week of the election, Donald Trump will announce he's running in 2024.  He won't, actually, as by that time the nationa will have moved on and his troubles will have grown.  Moreover, given his age and all that being in the position of 1) being a candidate and 2) being a potential defendant in one more trials, will catch up with him and nature will take its course, as it always does in the end.

Up until that moment, Joe Biden will indicate he's running, assuming the intervention of the docking of the barque within the next year or so.  After that, however, one way or another, he'll announce that he's not running.

The Tribune predicts a Republican sweep locally, but how could that not occur?

It will, but Lynette Grey Bull will pull in at least 33% of the vote, maybe more.  Harriet Hageman will go on to be elected, but she'll be sidelined as an irrelevant freshman Congressman as soon as she shows up.  Senator Barrasso will start to slowly pull away from Trump and Hageman. Senator Lummis will not.

Chuck Grey will of course win the Secretary of State's position, but a surprising number of Nethercott write ins will appear.  He'll go on to be a largely ineffectual Secretary of State who will mark time until 2026, when he hopes to run for Governor.  He will run, but he won't be nominated.

The next legislature will take a sharp leap to the right, and as a result it will be constantly at war, in some fashion, on local control and social issues.  It'll also cut back on spending and dig in on fossil fuels.  Given the probable GOP take over of the Senate, nothing big "green" will happen in the next two years, but nothing of the opposite nature will happen either.  A couple of years in attempting to an evolving, changing energy economy will be lost.

By 2024 the bloom will start to be off the rose locally on the hard right lurch.  Many of the diehard forces will have waned, and to some degree the movement will be a victim of its success.  Political glory is short.  Two legislative sessions of attacking the Federal government and not funding things will have its toll and the rollback will start.

By that time, it'll be harder to find people who, although they have Grey and Hagemean signs out right now, will admit that they voted for them.  By the same token, people will be lying about who they voted for by mid-week. Lots of Grey Bull voters are going to deny they voted for her, and in some offices people who voted for Hageman or Grey will be lying about that.

Amendment A, allowing local communities to invest their reserves, will fail, even though it should pass.

Amendment B, allowing judges to serve for 15 years after they die, will pass, even though it should fail.

Last Prior Edition of Thread:

The 2022 Election Part XII. The General Election Race, Edition 2.

The 2022 Election Part XII. The General Election Race, Edition 2.

October 11, 2022

I didn't plan on doing a second one of these before the election, but the existing one got too big, so here we are. . . again.

Hopefully this is the last one in this tread, in a fairly sad election year.

The primary election really demonstrated Wyoming's lurch to the hard right with two of the state wide candidates receiving Trump endorsements, along with Harriet Hageman's whose only real issue was her loyalty to Donald Trump.  This upcoming legislative session promises, quite frankly, to be absolutely frightening and in the Congress Wyoming goes from having a respected, but not disliked in GOP circles, figure to one who will be, at least at first, a reliable GOP nullity.  In the Secretary of State office, which is the central business office for the state, a person who, back door, is widely disrespected in many circles goes into the fall completely unopposed.

And that points out the collapse of the Democratic Party in the state.  There are some notable Democrats who should be capable, in a sane situation, of easily beating a candidate like Chuck Gray, but they aren't running.

The races:

U.S. House of Representatives

Republican Party

Harriet Hageman.  Anointed by Donald Trump to take out Liz Cheney, and a late adopter of the stolen election theory, Wyoming lawyer Hageman is the favorite, albeit one who is seemingly now fairly quiet.

On that, Hageman won't even debate her Democratic challenger, which is both arrogant and rude.

Democratic Party.

Lynette Gray Bull.  Running a second time, the Native American candidate can be regarded as a "progressive" who is emphasizing her commitment to democracy, in opposition to Hageman's adoption of the stolen election story.  Gray Bull has challenged Hageman to a debate, but Hageman has rudely declined, as noted above.

Governor

Republican

Mark Gordon.

Democrat

Theresa Livingston.

Secretary of State

Republican

Chuck Gray. Gray has only been in the state for a decade and is widely held in many circles to be temperamentally and professionally unqualified for this position.

Gray, who wasn't universally popular in the legislature, focused on bogus election concerns in his campaign.  He'll take over from an even more unqualified interim Secretary of State who assumed this position when Ed Buchanan resigned to take a judicial appointment.

Democrat

None, the Democrats have defaulted in a race in which many feel the worst Republican candidate in the State's history won the GOP race, nearly assuring that the same individual will take that position. 

State Treasurer

Republican

Curt Meier won the GOP nomination for a second term.

Democrat

None.

State Auditor

Kristi Racines took this race in the Republican primary, and she seems to be the only candidate in the state that everyone likes.

Superintendent of Public Instruction

This is the only race for statewide office which actually features two qualified candidates.

Republican

Megan Delgenfelder.

Democrat

Sergio Maldonado.

Proposed Amendments to the Wyoming Constitution.

This year features two proposed amendments to the Wyoming constitution.  I'm not sure where the first one came from, but the second one is part of the general geriatric drift in the country, in which the generation that warned us to never trust anyone over 30 doesn't trust anyone under 60.

Proposed Amendment A

This proposed amendment's ballot summary states:

The Wyoming Constitution allows the state to invest state funds in equities such as the stock of corporations, but does not allow the funds of counties, cities and other political subdivisions to be invested in equities. The adoption of this amendment would allow the funds of counties, cities and other political subdivisions to be invested in equities to the extent and in the manner the legislature may allow by law. Any law authorizing the investment of specified political subdivision funds in equities would require a two-thirds vote of both houses of the legislature

The actual text of the revised statute would read as follows:

Article 16, Section 6. Loan of credit; donations prohibited; investment of funds; works of internal improvement.

(a) Neither the state nor any county, city, township, town, school district, or any other political subdivision, shall:

(i) Loan or give its credit or make donations to or in aid of any individual, association or corporation, except for necessary support of the poor; or

(ii) Subscribe to or become the owner of the capital stock of any association or corporation, except that:

(A) Funds of public employee retirement systems and the permanent funds of the state of Wyoming may be invested in such stock under conditions the legislature prescribes;

(B) The legislature may provide by law for the investment of funds not designated as permanent funds of the state in the capital stock of any association or corporation and may designate which of these funds may be invested. The legislature may prescribe different investment conditions for each fund. Any legislation establishing or increasing the percentage of any fund that may be invested under this subparagraph shall be passed only by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of all the members of each of the two (2) houses voting separately.

(C) The legislature may provide by law for the investment of county, city, township, town, school district, or any other political subdivision's funds in the capital stock of any association or corporation and may designate which of these funds may be invested. The legislature may prescribe different investment conditions for each type and class of political subdivision and for each type of fund. Any legislation establishing or increasing the percentage of any fund that may be invested under this subparagraph shall be passed only by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of all the members of each of the two (2) houses voting separately.

(b) The state shall not engage in any work of internal improvement unless authorized by a two-thirds (2/3) vote of the people.

I'm not really sure where this comes from, and I don't know what my opinion of it is.  The theory, I guess, would be that the legislature could provide for a means for local governments to invest their funds in hopes of getting higher yields than they do from banks, which would also mean that they'd have to be able to tolerate downturns in the market.

Proposed Amendment B.

The amendment summary that will appear on the ballot states:

Currently, the Wyoming Constitution requires Wyoming Supreme Court justices and district court judges to retire upon reaching the age of seventy (70). This amendment increases the mandatory retirement age of Supreme Court justices and district court judges from age seventy (70) to age seventy-five (75).

The actual text of the amendment provides:

Article 5, Section 5. Voluntary retirement and compensation of justices and judges.

The sales pitch on this is that many highly qualified jurists are forcibly put out to pasture to do something else in their lives rather than remain on the bench until they're taken out in a body bag.

Okay, that's not quite how it's put, but that's basically it.  Added to that, if they die before the state has to pay them any retirement, the state saves some cash.

October 13, 2022

Wyoming's interim Secretary of State Karl Allred made good on his promise to address a non issue by sending letters out to County Clerk's asking them to remove drop boxes.  Only seven counties use them.

Prior Secretary of State Ed Buchanan, who abandoned the post he was elected to in order to be appointed a district court judge, thereby effectively disrupting the election leading to the GOP nomination and probable election of Chuck Gray, had encouraged their use due to COVID during the last election. Gray has promised to ban them.

Probably most people don't realize that drop boxes probably include the election machine outside of the clerk's door.  I've only seen one dropbox that was located outside of a courthouse rather than in it, but I haven't been to all of these locations.  Clerks are free to tell the unqualified to tell Allred to pound sand, and the Clerk of Laramie County, in her interview with the paper there, basically did, noting that her office already complied with the security requests that the never successfully elected Allred suggested in his cheery letter which acknowledged that prior elections had been successfully conducted.

Flag of Laramie County, Wyoming.  By Jens Pattke - http://www.crwflags.com/fotw/flags/us-wy-la.html, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=58499517

While time will tell, this probably foreshadows an upcoming potentially hostile relationship between Clerks and Gray, if Gray tries to build on his "stolen election" campaign to tell the elected clerks what they can do.

Tulsi Gabbard, who left the GOP officially two days ago, has already endorsed a Trump backed Washington candidate.

According to the Tribune, a council for Casper's city council had to be shut down from speaking at a recent school board meeting when he got a bit out of control.

October 13, cont.

Governor Ron DeSantis relaxed voting rules for the areas of Florida recently impacted by a hurricane.

It should be noted that the GOP Governor has been riffing off of Trump populists, who also feel that just such actions in regard to the 2020 election resulted in it being stolen.

Hmmm. . . .

October 14, 2022

A debate of candidates for the U.S. House, save for Harriet Hageman, occurred last night.

Hageman was castigated by the other candidates for her failure to appear, which is either rude, arrogant, or cowardly.  At least one candidate called her actions cowardly.

Hageman needs to be heard from on her failure to debate, and not with the excuse that she has other more effective means of communicating with Wyomingites. So far, more or less, her campaign has been limited to the fact that she supports now subpoenaed Donald J. Trump no matter what, whereas Liz Cheney has the courage of her convictions.  Other than having united herself to Trump no matter what, there's nothing really known to distinguish her from Cheney, but the voters really haven't heard much from her otherwise in a widespread way.  Public forum's she's attended to date have been principally populated with Hageman Fans/Cheney Haters, so that does not suffice.

October 14, 2022

Long serving (37 years) Deputy Secretary of State Karen Wheeler is leaving the office. She's the second prominent member of the Secretary of State's Office to leave, with the first one expressly leaving due to Chuck Gray coming into the office.

There have been rumor that resignations would be widespread.  It would have been anticipated that this would have commenced after Chuck Gray assumed office in January, if it was going to, but with Interim Sectary Allred being of a similar mind to Gray, it may start sooner.  If it does it will create the very election crisis that Gray and Allred claimed to be dedicated to avoiding, but because of their attacks on an institution which was not in trouble.

October 15, 2022

None of the clerks replying to Allred's request have agreed to comply with it, thereby making him 100% ineffective in that effort.  Of course, the effort was pointless to begin with, but it foreshadows a likely showdown between the county clerks and incoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who has no more authority over them than Allred does.

This is not a minor manner.  The clerks are rightfully telling Allred, and Gray by extension, to butt out.   This is likely to visit the courts in some fashion.

October 20, 2022

The Deputy Secretary of State Karen Wheeler and Election Division Director Kai Schon announced in front of the Corporations Committee of the Legislature last Friday that they're resigning after the November election.  While they termed it as being a good time to pursue other opportunities, it's pretty clear that neither wishes to serve under the likely winner, Chuck Gray, who based his campaign on fictional election security concerns.  It's no wonder that either would wish to serve under Gray, although it remains a wonder that Gray won the primary. A lack of a primary opponent means that Gray almost certainly will tragically win the office.

Both individuals are graciously remaining through the general election, and Schon indicated he'll reach out to the "Secretary Elect".

October 23, 2022

Liz Cheney appeared as a guest on Meet The Press today.  Relevant to the current election, she indicated that she's not voting for Harriet Hageman or Chuck Gray, and that anyone who is concerned about democracy, cannot.

Mary Peltola, Democratic Congressman from Alaska, received a number of Republican endorsements in that state for much the same reason.

October 25, 2022

The Natrona County School Board election is getting more attention than it normally would.

Superintendent for Public Instruction candidate Delgenfelder appeared at last night's meeting to support the district's right to make the decision to leave the book Gender Queer on the shelves, but to oppose the book itself, thereby basically taking both sides of the issue regarding the book. She suggested that it is pornographic.  The book has drawn the ire of three candidates who are members of something called "Moms For Liberty".

I'd never heard of the group, but the name is a poor one and a bit ironic in some ways. Basically they're a conservative, nationwide, organization that emphasizes parental control of schools and fears that schools engage in liberal indoctrination.  I'm not going to comment on that one way or another, but the "liberty" aspect of that shows the odd misuse of that word in our current culture.

The political right accuses, in essence, the political left of being "libertine", a word that I'd wager the majority of Americans are ignorant of nowadays.

The online etymology dictionary defines liberty as follows:

late 14c., "free choice, freedom to do as one chooses," also "freedom from the bondage of sin," from Old French liberte "freedom, liberty, free will" (14c., Modern French liberté), from Latin libertatem (nominative libertas) "civil or political freedom, condition of a free man; absence of restraint; permission," from liber "free" (see liberal (adj.)). At first of persons; of communities, "state of being free from arbitrary, despotic, or autocratic rule or control" is by late 15c.

The French notion of liberty is political equality; the English notion is personal independence. [William R. Greg, "France in January 1852" in "Miscellaneous Essays"]

Nautical sense of "leave of absence" is from 1758. The meaning "unrestrained action, conduct, or expression" (1550s) led to take liberties "go beyond the bounds of propriety" (1620s). The sense of "privileges by grant" (14c.) led to the sense of "a person's private land" (mid-15c.), within which certain special privileges may be exercised, which yielded in 18c. in both England and America a sense of "a district within a county but having its own justice of the peace," and also "a district adjacent to a city and in some degree under its municipal jurisdiction" (as in Northern Liberties of Philadelphia). Also compare Old French libertés "local rights, laws, taxes."

How much does the current use of the term, by anyone, reflect that?

That Delgenfelder would appear at the meeting is odd, frankly, as the political advantage of a Republican candidate appearing in this venue, when she seemingly doesn't need to, is an odd strategic choice.

October 26, 2022

Superintendant of Education Brian Schroeder appeared at an event earlier this week on the topic of sexualization of children in school, a topic related to the one noted immediately above.

Steve Bannon predicted that Anthony Fauci will be "hunted" following the mid terms, a particularly distrubing comment by Bannon who is out of the pokey following his contempt conviction pending appeal.

October 30, 2022

Harriet Hageman has an op ed in the Trib today in which she claims that 1) inflation, 2) high illegal immigration, 3) "record breaking human trafficing", 4) "record breaking drug running" and 5) high food costs (which would seem to be included in inflation), are all part of a "Democratic plan" to bring about a "leftist Utopia".

This places Hageman squarely in the really extreme category, rhetoric wise, and its fair to assume at this point that she probably believes what she's saying.

Hageman lashed out two days ago at University of Wyoming professors studying her tweats for "toxicity", stating:

I’ll tell you what’s ‘toxic’ . . . trying to freeze free speech with ominous warnings that ‘we’re watching you’ from pointy-headed college professors and the leftist corporate media.

Speaking of toxic, Nancy Pelosi's husband Paul was attacked by an unhinged lunatic this past week.  This has of course resulted in discussion on whether the atmosphere created by the late Trump administration and Trumpism since then has contributed to this event, as the actor had bought into all sorts of conspiracies.

Well, let's take a look at just what's noted here.  From the Trib:

In the Biden administration, we are seeing the most dangerous, most destructive administration in U.S. history. President Biden and the radical Democrats are responsible for record-breaking inflation, record-breaking illegal immigration, record-breaking human trafficking, record-breaking drug running, and record-breaking energy and food costs.

It would be one thing if these calamities were happening by accident, though it would still be tragic, but what we are enduring is actually the Democrats’ plan. Their goal is to completely upend our economy, to force people to bend to their will and compel behavioral changes to establish their leftist Utopia. We need members of Congress who will expose these nonsensical policies and fight to return us to a commonsense path that will lead us back to liberty and prosperity.

There you have it, from Wyoming's almost certain next Congressman. President Biden's administration is the most dangerous and destructive in the nation's history, out to create a left wing Utopia through all sorts of intentional bad acts.

No responsibility for rhetoric?

November 7, 2022

Cheyenne Representative Dale Zwonitzer blasted the direction the state's legislture has been heading in an interview with the Laramie Boomerang., accusing newer idealogues of being unable to read or even think.

I've heard similiar comments from legislators privately or ones who stepped down, but Zwonitzer was extremely blunt for a candidate who is not only an incumbant, but running for reelection.

Last Prior Edition:

The 2022 Election Part XII. The General Election Race, Edition 1.

Why won't Harriet Hageman debate?