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Showing posts with label Coronavirus Pandemic. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Coronavirus Pandemic. Show all posts
Sunday, September 14, 2025
Wednesday, August 20, 2025
Pandemic Part 10. A new paradigm?
February 17, 2022
The Center for Disease Control estimates that, taking the massive spread of Omicron around the country into account and the final relatively high vaccination rate in the country, 73% of the nation is now immune from the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, i.e. COVID 19.
Nobody is really sure exactly what that means. But it might mean that we're entering a phase where the virus doesn't disappear, but it's much less disruptive to society.
It's still the case, however, that it remains a danger for the unvaccinated.
March 1, 2022
Wyoming's public health emergency shall expire on March 14.
March 21, 2022
A new variant of Omicron has developed, which is about 30% more transmissible than the already more transmissible Omicron. It's spiking in Europe and in Hong Kong has caused an outbreak with a massive death rate, mostly concentrated in the unvaccinated elderly.
China has reported its first deaths in many months.
According to experts, the world is about 50% through the probable course of the pandemic.
April 14, 2022
Over 1,000,000 Americans have now died from the COVID 19.
July 22, 2022
President Biden has COVID 19.
At this point, two members of our four member family also have, with one having had it quite recently and finding it awful, but being grateful accordingly for having been vaccinated.
A new, more traditional type of vaccine, has now been approved.
September 20, 2022
On 60 Minutes over the weekend, President Biden stated; "The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over." The HHS Secretary later confirmed that position.
Epidemiologically, it isn't over, but then neither is the plague's pandemic either. The statement has been criticized, with 400 people per day dying of the disease, but by and large it reflects the mood of the public which has largely gone back to a new post Covid introduction, world in which COVID 19 is part of the background.
December 15, 2022
The new defense spending authorization includes a requirement that the Secretary of Defense rescind vaccination requirements for troops because, well because that's the idiotic sort of thing that politicians like to stick into bills.
All of the troops should be vaccinated.
December 24, 2022
China, which has not accepted western vaccines, reported 37,000,000 new vaccinations in a single day.
January 2, 2023
A new variant of Omicron, XBB.1.5, now makes up 40% of the new cases in the U.S.
And Covid is still killing.
January 20, 2023
Governor Gordon Tests Positive for COVID-19
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon has received results of a COVID-19 test that showed he is positive for the virus. The Governor is experiencing only minor symptoms at this time and will continue working from home on behalf of Wyoming.
March 1, 2023
The Washington Post broke a story that the Department of Energy issued a report believing, with "low confidence", that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in a Chinese lab.
A really good analysis of this story can be found here:
Why Scientists, Lawmakers & Diplomats Care Where COVID Began
In actuality, the Biden Administration early on ordered governmental intelligence agencies to get to the bottom of the virus' origin. Eight intelligence agencies were assigned to the tasks, two of which have concluded, but with confidence doubts, that the virus was natural in origin. Two, we know now, felt the opposite, with it already known since 2021 what the FBI felt, with "moderate confidence" that the origin was a Chinese lab. Two just haven't reported.
None of this kept some from claiming that it's now proven that the virus originated in the lab.
FWIW, private scientists, as opposed to intelligence agencies, overwhelmingly feel that it originated due to animal transfer in the Wuhan market.
March 18, 2023
Recent evidence points to raccoon dogs at the Wuhan market as the source.
April 11, 2023
President Biden declared the COVID emergency to be over.
August 22, 2023
Declared over or not, two new strains are on the loose and a new booster should be available mid September.
April 12, 2024
The CDC has found there's no link between the COVID vaccines and cardiac arrest in young people.
Not that this is a surprise.
It'll make no difference in the anti-scientific atmosphere of the day. A society that can believe that legalizing marijuana, which is largely untested and wholly unregulated, and that Donald Trump won hte 2020 election, will still believe that the vaccine is risky, but cause it wishes to.
June 15, 2024
Reuters has revealed that during the height of the pandemic, the US ran an anti-vax campaign in the Philippines to try to undermine Chinese efforts there.
There's no excuse for that whatsoever.
November 18, 2024
January 26, 2025
The Central Intelligence Agency revised its report on the origin of COVID reporting, with low confidence, that a Chinese laboratory is to blame.
This was a report that was completed during the Biden Administration and was just now released. It's being released now is unfortunate, in that it comes during the Trump Interregnum which is packed with people who generally have a contempt for science, which this will slightly fuel if anyone notices it given all the distraction at the present time. Most Scientists think the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species.
May 21, 2025
The Trump Administration is limiting vaccine updates to those over 65 or in high risk categories, and requiring extensive testing for new updates.
August 20, 2025
The American Academy of Pediatrics is strongly recommending COVID19 shots for children ages 6 months to 2, putting it in conflict for the first time with HHS, lead by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, which doesn't recommend the shots for healthy children. The AAP's recommendation is based on science, the HHS's by waiving a fryer chicken above Robert F. Kennedy's head while singing the Hockey Pokey.
The HSS point of view will get people killed, which means RFK Jr. has blood on his hands.
Last prior installment:
Pandemic Part 9. Omicron becomes dominant
Saturday, December 21, 2024
Subsidiarity Economics 2024. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. A return to Pre Covid status
US incomes have returned to their 2019 level, adjusted for inflation.
The adjusted rate of inflation was 2.9%.
While people will continue to complain, this is pretty close to being back to the economic status of 2019.
Oil dropped yesterday to $69/bbl.
September 25, 2024
Delta To Pull Out Of Casper Airport, Last Flight Is Dec. 3
Delta To Pull Out Of Casper Airport, Last Flight Is Dec. 3
November 17, 2024
Boeing is commencing layoffs.
November 26, 2024
In a monumentally bad idea, President-elect Donald Trump said Monday he will issue executive orders imposing new tariffs on all imported goods from China, Mexico and Canada. with the rates being 25 percent tariffs would be imposed on Mexican and Canadian merchandise and 10 percent on Chinese goods. This was tied, oddly, to his immigration goals.
December 2, 2024
President Elect Trump threatened 100% tariffs against Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the United Arab Emirates.
Turkey, Azerbaijan and Malaysia if they act to block the US Dollar ast he global reserve currency.
December 3, 2024
From a Fox News broadcast:
We are told that when Trudeau told President-elect Trump that new tariffs would kill the Canadian economy, Trump joked to him that if Canada can't survive without ripping off the U.S. the tune of one hundred billion dollars a year, then maybe Canada should become the 51st state and Trudeau could become its governor.
Apparently this was said by Trump in jest by our boorish embarrassment of a President Elect.
December 11, 2024
$24B merger between grocery giants Kroger, Albertsons blocked by federal judge
Continuous arabica coffee futures on the ICE rose 4.1% to $3.44 a pound beating a record set in 1977 even before it is adjusted for inflation.
December 12, 2024
An Ontario message to Donald Trump from Ontario Premier Doug Ford.
We need to be ready to fight [on] January the 20th. We will go to the extent of cutting off their energy, going down to Michigan, going down to New York State and over to Wisconsin. I don't want this to happen, but my number one job is to protect Ontario, Ontarians and Canadians as a whole since we're the largest province. Let's see what happens as we move forward. But we'll use every tool in our toolbox, including cutting them off energy that we're sending down there.
Frankly, a lot of New York will freeze in the dark without Canadian hydroelectric.
On groceries, the item that a lot of Trump voters naively believed Trump could make the price of "go down":
It's hard to bring things down once they're up. You know, it's very hard.
Donald Trump.
D'uh.
There was no earthly way that Trump was ever going to be able to get the price of groceries to go down and a person would have had to have been bereft of economic knowledge to have believed that. Unfortunately, a lot of Americans are in fact bereft of economic knowledge. As we've noted here before, that would require deflation, and deflation if prolonged, causes a Depression.
Trump back on November 4, 2024: “A vote for Trump means your groceries will be cheaper.”
Nope, they won't be.
So, now that he's been elected, this promise joins the one to end the war in Ukraine 24 hours after he's elected. I.e., it'll be broken.
December 13, 2024
Pope Francis.
Forgive us our trespasses: grant us your peaceI. Listening to the plea of an endangered humanity1. At the dawn of this New Year given to us by our heavenly Father, a year of Jubilee in the spirit of hope, I offer heartfelt good wishes of peace to every man and woman. I think especially of those who feel downtrodden, burdened by their past mistakes, oppressed by the judgment of others and incapable of perceiving even a glimmer of hope for their own lives. Upon everyone I invoke hope and peace, for this is a Year of Grace born of the Heart of the Redeemer!2. Throughout this year, the Catholic Church celebrates the Jubilee, an event that fills hearts with hope. The “jubilee” recalls an ancient Jewish practice, when, every forty-ninth year, the sound of a ram’s horn (in Hebrew, jobel) would proclaim a year of forgiveness and freedom for the entire people (cf. Lev 25:10). This solemn proclamation was meant to echo throughout the land (cf. Lev 25:9) and to restore God’s justice in every aspect of life: in the use of the land, in the possession of goods and in relationships with others, above all the poor and the dispossessed. The blowing of the horn reminded the entire people, rich and poor alike, that no one comes into this world doomed to oppression: all of us are brothers and sisters, sons and daughters of the same Father, born to live in freedom, in accordance with the Lord’s will (cf. Lev 25:17, 25, 43, 46, 55).3. In our day too, the Jubilee is an event that inspires us to seek to establish the liberating justice of God in our world. In place of the ram’s horn, at the start of this Year of Grace we wish to hear the “desperate plea for help” [1] that, like the cry of the blood of Abel (cf. Gen 4:10), rises up from so many parts of our world – a plea that God never fails to hear. We for our part feel bound to cry out and denounce the many situations in which the earth is exploited and our neighbours oppressed. [2] These injustices can appear at times in the form of what Saint John Paul II called “structures of sin”, [3] that arise not only from injustice on the part of some but are also consolidated and maintained by a network of complicity.4. Each of us must feel in some way responsible for the devastation to which the earth, our common home, has been subjected, beginning with those actions that, albeit only indirectly, fuel the conflicts that presently plague our human family. Systemic challenges, distinct yet interconnected, are thus created and together cause havoc in our world. [4] I think, in particular, of all manner of disparities, the inhuman treatment meted out to migrants, environmental decay, the confusion willfully created by disinformation, the refusal to engage in any form of dialogue and the immense resources spent on the industry of war. All these, taken together, represent a threat to the existence of humanity as a whole. At the beginning of this year, then, we desire to heed the plea of suffering humankind in order to feel called, together and as individuals, to break the bonds of injustice and to proclaim God’s justice. Sporadic acts of philanthropy are not enough. Cultural and structural changes are necessary, so that enduring change may come about. [5]II. A cultural change: all of us are debtors5. The celebration of the Jubilee spurs us to make a number of changes in order to confront the present state of injustice and inequality by reminding ourselves that the goods of the earth are meant not for a privileged few, but for everyone. [6] We do well to recall the words of Saint Basil of Caesarea: “Tell me, what things belong to you? Where did you find them to make them part of your life? … Did you not come forth naked from the womb of your mother? Will you not return naked to the ground? Where did your property come from? If you say that it comes to you naturally by luck, you would deny God by not recognizing the Creator and being grateful to the Giver”. [7] Without gratitude, we are unable to recognize God’s gifts. Yet in his infinite mercy the Lord does not abandon sinful humanity, but instead reaffirms his gift of life by the saving forgiveness offered to all through Jesus Christ. That is why, in teaching us the “Our Father”, Jesus told us to pray: “Forgive us our trespasses” ( Mt 6:12).6. Once we lose sight of our relationship to the Father, we begin to cherish the illusion that our relationships with others can be governed by a logic of exploitation and oppression, where might makes right. [8] Like the elites at the time of Jesus, who profited from the suffering of the poor, so today, in our interconnected global village, [9] the international system, unless it is inspired by a spirit of solidarity and interdependence, gives rise to injustices, aggravated by corruption, which leave the poorer countries trapped. A mentality that exploits the indebted can serve as a shorthand description of the present “debt crisis” that weighs upon a number of countries, above all in the global South.7. I have repeatedly stated that foreign debt has become a means of control whereby certain governments and private financial institutions of the richer countries unscrupulously and indiscriminately exploit the human and natural resources of poorer countries, simply to satisfy the demands of their own markets. [10] In addition, different peoples, already burdened by international debt, find themselves also forced to bear the burden of the “ecological debt” incurred by the more developed countries. [11] Foreign debt and ecological debt are two sides of the same coin, namely the mindset of exploitation that has culminated in the debt crisis. [12] In the spirit of this Jubilee Year, I urge the international community to work towards forgiving foreign debt in recognition of the ecological debt existing between the North and the South of this world. This is an appeal for solidarity, but above all for justice. [13]8. The cultural and structural change needed to surmount this crisis will come about when we finally recognize that we are all sons and daughters of the one Father, that we are all in his debt but also that we need one another, in a spirit of shared and diversified responsibility. We will be able to “rediscover once for all that we need one another” and are indebted one to another. [14]III. A journey of hope: three proposals9. If we take to heart these much-needed changes, the Jubilee Year of Grace can serve to set each of us on a renewed journey of hope, born of the experience of God’s unlimited mercy. [15]God owes nothing to anyone, yet he constantly bestows his grace and mercy upon all. As Isaac of Nineveh, a seventh-century Father of the Eastern Church, put it in one of his prayers: “Your love, Lord, is greater than my trespasses. The waves of the sea are nothing with respect to the multitude of my sins, but placed on a scale and weighed against your love, they vanish like a speck of dust”. [16] God does not weigh up the evils we commit; rather, he is immensely “rich in mercy, for the great love with which he loved us” ( Eph 2:4). Yet he also hears the plea of the poor and the cry of the earth. We would do well simply to stop for a moment, at the beginning of this year, to think of the mercy with which he constantly forgives our sins and forgives our every debt, so that our hearts may overflow with hope and peace.10. In teaching us to pray the “Our Father”, Jesus begins by asking the Father to forgive our trespasses, but passes immediately to the challenging words: “as we forgive those who trespass against us” (cf. Mt 6:12). In order to forgive others their trespasses and to offer them hope, we need for our own lives to be filled with that same hope, the fruit of our experience of God’s mercy. Hope overflows in generosity; it is free of calculation, makes no hidden demands, is unconcerned with gain, but aims at one thing alone: to raise up those who have fallen, to heal hearts that are broken and to set us free from every kind of bondage.11. Consequently, at the beginning of this Year of Grace, I would like to offer three proposals capable of restoring dignity to the lives of entire peoples and enabling them to set them out anew on the journey of hope. In this way, the debt crisis can be overcome and all of us can once more realize that we are debtors whose debts have been forgiven.First, I renew the appeal launched by Saint John Paul II on the occasion of the Great Jubilee of the Year 2000 to consider “reducing substantially, if not cancelling outright, the international debt which seriously threatens the future of many nations”. [17] In recognition of their ecological debt, the more prosperous countries ought to feel called to do everything possible to forgive the debts of those countries that are in no condition to repay the amount they owe. Naturally, lest this prove merely an isolated act of charity that simply reboots the vicious cycle of financing and indebtedness, a new financial framework must be devised, leading to the creation of a global financial Charter based on solidarity and harmony between peoples.I also ask for a firm commitment to respect for the dignity of human life from conception to natural death, so that each person can cherish his or her own life and all may look with hope to a future of prosperity and happiness for themselves and for their children. Without hope for the future, it becomes hard for the young to look forward to bringing new lives into the world. Here I would like once more to propose a concrete gesture that can help foster the culture of life, namely the elimination of the death penalty in all nations. This penalty not only compromises the inviolability of life but eliminates every human hope of forgiveness and rehabilitation. [18]In addition, following in the footsteps of Saint Paul VI and Benedict XVI, [19] I do not hesitate to make yet another appeal, for the sake of future generations. In this time marked by wars, let us use at least a fixed percentage of the money earmarked for armaments to establish a global Fund to eradicate hunger and facilitate in the poorer countries educational activities aimed at promoting sustainable development and combating climate change. [20] We need to work at eliminating every pretext that encourages young people to regard their future as hopeless or dominated by the thirst to avenge the blood of their dear ones. The future is a gift meant to enable us to go beyond past failures and to pave new paths of peace.IV. The goal of peace12. Those who take up these proposals and set out on the journey of hope will surely glimpse the dawn of the greatly desired goal of peace. The Psalmist promises us that “steadfast love and faithfulness will meet; righteousness and peace will kiss” ( Ps 85:10). When I divest myself of the weapon of credit and restore the path of hope to one of my brothers or sisters, I contribute to the restoration of God’s justice on this earth and, with that person, I advance towards the goal of peace. As Saint John XXIII observed, true peace can be born only from a heart “disarmed” of anxiety and the fear of war. [21]13. May 2025 be a year in which peace flourishes! A true and lasting peace that goes beyond quibbling over the details of agreements and human compromises. [22] May we seek the true peace that is granted by God to hearts disarmed: hearts not set on calculating what is mine and what is yours; hearts that turn selfishness into readiness to reach out to others; hearts that see themselves as indebted to God and thus prepared to forgive the debts that oppress others; hearts that replace anxiety about the future with the hope that every individual can be a resource for the building of a better world.14. Disarming hearts is a job for everyone, great and small, rich and poor alike. At times, something quite simple will do, such as “a smile, a small gesture of friendship, a kind look, a ready ear, a good deed”. [23] With such gestures, we progress towards the goal of peace. We will arrive all the more quickly if, in the course of journeying alongside our brothers and sisters, we discover that we have changed from the time we first set out. Peace does not only come with the end of wars but with the dawn of a new world, a world in which we realize that we are different, closer and more fraternal than we ever thought possible.15. Lord, grant us your peace! This is my prayer to God as I now offer my cordial good wishes for the New Year to the Heads of State and Government, to the leaders of International Organizations, to the leaders of the various religions and to every person of good will.Forgive us our trespasses, Lord,as we forgive those who trespass against us.In this cycle of forgiveness, grant us your peace,the peace that you alone can giveto those who let themselves be disarmed in heart,to those who choose in hope to forgive the debts of their brothers and sisters,to those who are unafraid to confess their debt to you,and to those who do not close their ears to the cry of the poor.From the Vatican, 8 December 2024
December 17, 2024
Canada's Finance Minister resigned.
This of course gave the chance for our bratty twelve year old president elect to make another one of his snotty tweets.
The Great State of Canada is stunned as the Finance Minister resigns, or was fired, from her position by Governor Justin Trudeau. Her behavior was totally toxic, and not at all conducive to making deals which are good for the very unhappy citizens of Canada. She will not be missed!!!
Where this conduct comes from, and why its tolerated is another question.
December 18, 2024
Elon Musk is campaigning against the bill that would provide stop gap funding until the next Congress convenes.
December 19, 2024
The Fed is cutting interests rates.
December 20, 2024
After tanking one continuing budget resolution, following his super wealthy "DOGE" appointees, Trump supported a second, which tanked last night.
And here we enter interesting territory. In spite of widespread public belief to the contrary, Trump was set to inherit a strong economy. Now he's tanking it.
December 21, 2024
A CR passed but House Republicans defied a Trump request to raise the debt ceiling.
Why would Trump want to raise the debt ceiling if he intends to be true to the spirit of his campaign?
And now Trump is threatening the EU with tariffs if they don't up oil and gas imports, which are already at capacity.
Related threads:
September 10, 2024. Pearls Before Swine.
Last edition:
Subsidiarity Economics 2024. The times more or less locally, Part 3. The Decarbonizing the West and Electronic eartags Edition.
Labels: 2020s, 2024, Agriculture, Alcohol, Canada, Cattle, Climate Change, Coal, Computers, Disease, Economics, Health, Internet, Labor unrest, Railroads, technology, Unions, Wyoming's boom and bust economy
Tuesday, October 8, 2024
The Washington Post: Trump secretly sent covid tests to Putin during 2020 shortage, new book says
Trump secretly sent covid tests to Putin during 2020 shortage, new book says
“War,” by Bob Woodward, traces how Trump and Biden responded to international crisis and concludes that Trump is worse than Nixon, the president exiled by the Watergate scandal.
Once again, the odd Trump/Putin thing comes up. . .
Tuesday, August 20, 2024
The 2024 Election, Part XXIV. Brat Girl Summer*
The 2024 race for the Oval Office has been so shaken up since Joe Biden dropped out, and Kamala Harris stepped in, its simply unprecedented. Trump, armed for a race against Biden, has been, for lack of a better word for it, simply freaking out, engaging in calling Harris (and former President Obama) racist names, and even engaging in absolutely wild fantasies, such as this:
Biden wants back in?
Not hardly. That's delusion in full flower. It is, frankly, weird.
But then Trump is weird.
The use of the world "weird" to coin the GOP campaign has been freaking the Republicans out as well, with it really hitting home after J. D. Vance, whom Trump might very well wish to dump, was named VP. I don't think Vance is weird, but he is a full fledged National Conservative and the risk that entailed to Trump started to hit home almost as soon as Vance was picked, and hasn't let up since. Trump, who embraced the National Conservatives earlier, probably only dimply aware of their views and not really caring about them as he saw them as just a sales opportunity, not realizing they saw him as their ticket to power as he won't be around very long, ran away from the National Conservatives as soon as they became a liability.
As Coulter has says, Trump is like a couch, bearing the impression of the last person who sat on him.
Ever since Harris came on the scene Trump and his backers have been looking for something that hits against her and failing. And now they're doing the same thing with Tim Walz, her VP pick, launching into him nearly immediately. Meanwhile, they're abandoning social conservatives who voted for him reluctantly, giving them a reason to move to somebody else.
I've seen the American Solidarity Party mentioned in that context now more than once.
Basic training photograph of Tim Walz.
Walz is getting flack for retiring after a long National Guard NCO career before his unit was to deploy to Iraq. Walz was originally a Nebraska National Guardsman, and enlisted in the Guard the same year that I did. Shoot, he may have been in basic training when I was. He stayed in for something like 24 years and retired in 2005, several months before his unit deployed to the Middle East. He's taking criticism for his retirement.
He was in an E9 slot at the time, but because he hadn't completed a training cycle, which a former E-9 I know states takes two years, his retirement was at the E8 level.
There are reasons to criticize Walz, in my view, for his stands on social issues. But retiring from the National Guard after 24 years in is not one of them. Even if he simply felt like not going to Iraq that wouldn't be one of them. It's not like we saw Donald Trump beating the doors down to go to Vietnam, now is it?
But that seems to have become a hallmark of the Boomer generation. Lots of opinions on service by people who didn't wear a uniform.
A hallmark of recent times is that military service is something the right claims as its own, which is odd. This has become more and more the case as the number of people who have actually served has continued to decline. Walz would have been part of the big Cold War Army in its last decade. Vance was not, he wa part of the 9/11 generation of servicemen. It's easy to forget, seemingly, that a lot of figures served in uniform, and many still do, who aren't of the political right.
Slamming a National Guardsman, it might be noted, is an old tactic that makes Guard veterans, including myself, bitter. Those joining the Guard in 81, like Walz, or me, served a longer period of time, six years minimum, than active duty servicemen of the same era did. We received the same basic and advanced training, and were in the Army when we did, and we often pulled multiple actual periods of activation All in all, that six years, for many of us, gave us as much or nearly as much active duty time as the two years that regulars pulled.
Vance, it might be noted, served in Iraq in 2005, but he didn't see combat.
Combative Harriet Hagerman is slamming the City of Boulder, Colorado, for no real apparent reason. Boulder is notably liberal, and that seems to be the reason. She stated in Teton County:
The pilot project is, you take out all their gas stations,” she said to a crowd of about 70 people in the Teton County Library. “We take away all their internal combustion engines — cars. We take away all of their highways and streets, because that’s all oil-and-gas-produced.
We fill out open space with windmills and solar panels, and we’ll see if we can actually run a city of 100,000 people [with] no fossil fuels whatsoever.
We’ll see if I can get that off the ground.
Boulder city councilman Mark Wallach retorted:
If she doesn’t understand the actual serious nature of the threat posed by climate change, I’m afraid she’s going to be living in a very warm state in the next decade.
If somebody wants to make light, that’s their business. I deal in the real world, not in her fantasy world.
Having jus tsustained a loss on the ranch of her youth, Hageman's refusal to recognize what Wallach is pointing out is really remarkable.
Of course, the danger here is that somebody takes Hageman's suggestion serious and the pilot program works.
Out in the hinterlands Democrats and Republicans might actually be moving more towards the center. "Squad" member Rep. Cori Bush lost her primary in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District to St. Louis County prosecutor Wesley Bell, a moderate Democrat. Nutty Valentina Gomez, a far-right MAGA candidate for Missouri Secretary of State is now in 6th Place, her ads showing her running around armed and burning books with a flame thrower not withstanding.
August 12, 2024
Truck abuse.
A surplus U.S. Army 2 1/2 ton 6x6 truck converted into a political billboard.
Dawn's Early Light's release date has been pushed back after the election.
August 13, 2024
He was rambling, babbling on about crowd sizes and immigration and President Joe Biden and whatever else seemed to pass through his mind. He was also badly slurring his words, raising questions about his health, and doing nothing to knock down rising concerns about his age and well-being.
He sounded like a disoriented, racist Daffy Duck.
The USA Today in Elon Musk's Twitter interview of Donald Trump.
Others sources were mixed, one calling it dull.
Cont:
Teachers’ lobby targets candidates ahead of ‘pivotal’ Wyoming election: The Wyoming Education Association has publicly criticized Freedom Caucus members who oppose its positions. Some call foul.
August 14, 2024
Secretary of State Chuck Gray on Monday called for some county clerks to retest electronic voting systems with just over a week before the 2024 primary election. The request was made through a letter sent out on Monday to all 23 Wyoming county clerks
Casper Star Tribune, August 14, 2024.
Ilhan Omar her fourth Democratic Party nomination for her seat in Minnesota.
August 15, 2024
Some good economic news:
Inflation has hit a three year low.
Total employment in Wyoming grew by a scant 1.3% from first quarter 2023 to first quarter 2024, but total payroll grew by 4.1% over the year, the Research and Planning section of the Wyoming Department of Workforce Services reported Friday. Average weekly wage in the state grew by 2.8%.
In spite of this, however, GOP politicians are still campaigning on inflation.
It makes very little sense.
Consider this chart from the US Inflation Calculator:
This would indicate that average rates reach this rate relatively frequently. We would note that they were down below 2% in 2019 and 2020, right before COVID hit, and during Trump's Presidency, but they were at .1 in 2015, right before Trump took office.
The Federal target rate of inflation is 2%. We're about 1% higher than that right now, but generally the rate has been down around there under Democratic and Republican Presidents for the past twenty years, with some notable exceptions that were somewhat higher or somewhat lower. What seems to be routinely missed in the Republican complains here is the giant war in the grainbelt for the third world and southern Europe going on, and the massive impact of a global pandemic.
We have of course recently been tracking the Great War, which featured similar economic shocks. What happened then?
Massive inflation caused by the war, combined with the destruction of global trade to such an extent that by some measures it had only recovered. . . just before COVID 19.
Oh well, in the current political era facts and analysis are deflated.
Regarding facts, I've noted it before without being hugely pointed about it but the race in Senate District 28 has featured some truly disgusting campaigning by Bryce Reece. It's appalling.
Floods of flyers for Reece, who is challenging Jim Anderson, regarded as the most effective Senator in Wyoming's legislature, have been sent out and they contain lies. One calls Anderson a "gun grabber".
Reece also sent out a letter from his wife in which she makes appeals to religion, noting how they devout they are (from the text it's clear they are members of some branch of Evangelical Protestantism).**
Lying is a sin, and in some circumstances a grave sin.
Reece at one time was a sheep rancher, but is notably hostile to the science regarding COVID 19. I really don't grasp why people believe that COVID 19 was exaggerated, which Reece's propaganda asserts. The disease has ripped through the ranching community, however, due to similar beliefs, even while ranchers continue to vaccinate their livestock without hesitation for animal diseases.
At any rate, I've never seen more lies circulated in a Wyoming election year in my lifetime, all of which are originating in the far populist right. This isn't unique to Reece by any means. I'm only aware of it here, as I pick up propaganda in favor of him nearly every day. It's going on all over the state.
Interestingly yesterday one of the things that came was a flyer for this area including all the populist far right candidates together. Included was House candidate Pete Fox, who has not run a nasty campaign, but who is clearly on the far right, incumbent Jim Allemand and Jeanette Ward. I don't recall who else was on it. At the same time, precinct committee members for the GOP, who here are not extremist, sent out their own flyer endorsing Senator Jim Anderson and Elissa Campbell for the House. They also listed Casey Coates and Paul Bertoglio for County Commissioner, and Amber Pollack and Pat Sweeney for Casper City Council.
In the far right oddities category, far right candidate for the Senate, Reid Rasner, is getting no love from the organized populists, which is interesting. At the same time that they're locally willing to rip to shreds other Republicans, including incumbents, and resort to lies, they're ignoring Rasner, who is as far right as they are (but who hasn't been telling outrageous lies). In the race for the U.S. Senate, he's the real deal, while frankly Barrasso is basically posing as being from the far right, bending to the wind in order to fend off the challenge. In a year in which the far right has even accused a prominent member of the legislature as supporting the Chinese Communist Party (an absurd claim), you'd think that the populist would attack Barrasso as its a safe thing to do Republican seat wise.
Nope.
Of course, Barrasso has done a good job of adopting their themes, although I frankly doubt he believes hardly any of them.
On PACS
Competing PACs in the Wyoming GOP raked in tens of thousands so far this year
August 16, 2024
Somebody left a threatening message on Chuck Gray's voicemail, which stated:
You’re playing with fire. I want you to know that if you start cheating, stealing, election denying this time around and shit hits the fan in November — you’re going to fucking get it Mr. Chuck Gray,
Gray resorted to his usual line in regard to this, it's the media's fault. The Tribune reports that he wrote them, stating:
False media reporting incites individuals like this. As mentioned by the individual leaving the message, the message was clearly triggered by false reporting by publications such as WyoFile and their syndication partners around the state.
WyoFile hasn't been reporting falsely, and Gray did make false statements in the last election about the election being stolen, none of which justifies threatening him.
Regarding false statements, I received a text of all things referencing the attack ads in favor of Bryce Reece noting that they were paid for by an organization located in Virginia. This was some sort of unsolicited text, like spam.
Anyhow, I haven't checked it out, but that information is basically of the type that's otherwise been in the news. It's disturbing that an out of state organization would sink money in Wyoming in favor of a populist candidate and circulate lies.
Donald Trump apparently gave a long rambling press conference yesterday. It's full of odd statements and has been real fodder for his critics.
Included in them was a claim about China's nuclear arsenal equalling the U.S's one, which China immediately corrected, noting also that China, unlike the US, has an official no first use of nuclear weapons policy.
China termed the U.S. arsenal, correctly, as "way bigger".
Also in Trump's comments was this item, we've already commented about:
Dr. Marx?
You're all going to be thrown into a communist system. You will be thrown into a system where everybody gets health care . . .
Donald Trump.
So the Red Horde was actually fighting for universal health care?
In fairness, that was just apparently a snippet of what he said. In the same speech he accused Harris of "badness" to an unnamed ally. But, in terms of speech, well this is, um, weird.
Other gems included the following.
Concerning the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Medal of Honor, which are not equivalent in any sense:
When we gave her the Presidential Medal of Freedom… It’s the equivalent of the Congressional Medal of Honor— it’s actually much better because everyone who gets the Congressional Medal, they’re soldiers. They’re either in very bad shape because they’ve been hit so many times by bullets or they’re dead. She gets it and she’s a healthy beautiful woman.
This is a bizarre comment and once again into Trump's world outlook. Trump seems to have a problem with injured people and he doesn't seem to respect military service much.
It's worth noting, although it probably deserves a separate thread, that I've pretty much come to the conclusion that everyone should:
1) Be or live poor at some time. I'm not keen on poverty, and I wish nobody had to stay poor, but having had to live poor at some point, which a lot of people do when they are students, really serves as a great leveler. People who are rich their whole lives often believe they're super smart or superior to other people, when often circumstances of birth or luck have as much to do with that as anything;
2) Work a labor job. By that I mean be in the Army, work in the oilfield, work in a gas station, and not for your parents. People who've never had to do that often don't really respect those who do have to do that, or want to do that.
Working for your parents, I'd note, doesn't count.
I don't know much about young Trump, and I'm not going to bother to learn, but he's been rich his entire life, didn't serve in the Army, and has never, in so far as I know, worked a labor type job. His character seems to suffer for it.
The Harris campaign replied.
Regarding the "weird" tag:
She actually called me weird. He is weird. It was just a sound bite and she called JD and I weird. He's not weird. He was a great student at Yale.
For the record, I don't think J. D. Vance is weird. I do think there's reason to be concerned that something is wrong with Trump's mental status. And this "great student at Yale" thing is interesting. Nothing keeps you from being a great student, and weird.
Regarding a Taliban leader:
He called me 'Your Excellency.' I wonder if he calls that to Biden. I doubt it.
Um. . . .
Regarding job creation under Biden:
Substantially more than 100% of job creation went to migrants.
Um. . . .
Concerning Iran:
I’m not looking to be bad to Iran. We’re going to be friendly, I hope, with Iran. Maybe. But maybe not. But we’re going to be friendly, I hope. We’re going to be friendly.
Regarding windmills:
You want to see a bird cemetery, just go under a windmill, you see thousands of birds dead. The bald eagle, if you kill an eagle, they put you in jail for years. And yet these windmills knock them out like nothing.
Regarding acting like a 7th grade snot:
As far as the personal attacks, I’m very angry at her because of what she’s done to the country. I’m very angry at her that she weaponized the justice system against me and other people —- very angry at her, I think I'm entitled to personal attacks. I don't have a lot of respect for her. I don't have a lot of respect for her intelligence.
Intelligence is one of the things Trump brings up a lot. To some degree, I wonder if he's insecure about his intelligence.
Regarding Harris:
She's a very strong Communist lean.
That's nonsense as well as grammatically nonsensical.
Also regarding Harris:
She's been unbelievable in terms of badness to some of our great allies. You know who I'm talking about.
Badness?
Regarding a millionaires mutual admiration society:
Elon endorsed me strongly, the most powerful endorsement, said it three or four times the other night during our little chat. A chat that was very well listened to and attended, we know that, right? Broke every single record I think in history.
On Harris replacing Biden, combined with what was supposed to be a comment on inflation:
It was a coup by people that wanted him out, and they didn’t do it the way, not the way they’re supposed to do it. $129 more on energy, and $241 more. This is all per month on rent,
Choice words from a person who tried to subvert the election.
And, on wars and inflation, oddly.
We have wars breaking out in the Middle East. We have the horrible war going on with Ukraine and Russia. All these things would have never happened if I was president. Would have never, ever happened, and they didn’t happen. Since Harris took office, car insurance is up 55%,
August 18, 2024
The Democratic National Convention is next week which means its time for the Democrats to do something really dumb.
Hillary Clinton will speak at the convention.
Regular voters can't stand her. Having her speak is not a good idea.
And, in a Trump rally:
I am much better looking than her. I'm a better looking person than Kamala.
Weird.
August 19, 2024
And the verbal oddness just keeps on keeping on:
When you get the Medal of Honor, generally speaking…It’s much more painful to get…Where’s the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to my knowledge, I don't think anybody suffered
Trump.
The VFW is unhappy.
August 20, 2024
Trump slapped his loyal supporter in the GOP Primary, Reid Rasner, in the face by re-endorsing John Barrasso. He also re-endorsed Harriet Hageman.
The Trump campaign bizarrely posted fake AI generated images suggesting that Taylor Swift had endorsed Trump.
Predictably, the fake effort blew up rapidly and helps give rise, once again, to the word "weird" being used in regard to the Trump campaign.
Weirder yet, at one rally female Trump supporters were buying bottles labeled as if they were J. D. Vance semen samples, which is pretty darned weird.
In a really sad example of how Baby Boomers still rule the roost in American politics, James Taylor was scheduled to sing and play at last night's Democratic National Convention, apparently.
Taylor, I'm convinced, is an example of the cultural conspiracy phenomenon in which everyone pretends somebody is funny/talented/pretty when they are not. His music is dull beyond tolerance, but it's of the Boomer generation.
Something really interesting that will be on the Natrona County Primary ballot today is the question of a Senior District, comprising the entire county, which would add 1 mill to property taxes to fund things that help seniors, like Meals On Wheels and the Senior Centers.
I'll be curious if it passes in the current anti tax climate, but I'm also curious as I think its an example of forced charity, which is something I'm not comfortable with.
Funding for senior services has been in serious decline as donations have dried up locally, as the same time that the Baby Boomers are really starting to need them, and also at the same time in which Wyoming has become somewhat of a destination for aging people who have made their fortunes and lives elsewhere and then abandon the places they lived and worked in order to come here. I have a problem with that latter fact in general.
Additionally, the last legislature reduced property taxes for long time residents of a single dwelling, which is this generation, and its impossible not to notice that the backers of the proposition to limit property taxes are also made up of it.
You can't condemn an entire generation for a trend, but the overall trend here is noticeable. Old people need help, because of the train wreck of American culture they don't tend to get it from their families, particularly if they have moved away from them or vice versa, they don't like paying property taxes, the state's policies have encouraged property taxes to rise, and now the agencies that support them want to raise property taxes, albeit only a little.
In effect, with all of this combined, the tax burden will disproportionately fall on the young.
What a surprise.
No generation has benefitted as much from economic times, medicine, and governmental services than the Baby Boomers. But there has to be a stop to it somewhere. If overall policies have made things difficult for them, and they may have, things need to be rethought.
I voted against the district.
Thus Concluded This Edition.
Footnotes:
*"Brat" used to be negative thing to call somebody, but in recent years young women have embraced it as symbolizing assertiveness and somebody has an album coming out this summer called "Brat". Harris' supporters, and Harris, have embraced it, claiming this summer as "Brat Girl Summer".
**Included in the letter is statement that both she and her husband believe the U.S. Constitution is a divinely inspired document. Few Christians believe that, but it is a minority view in certain strains of American Protestantism and the LDS.
Related Threads:
Woke v. Weird? The race we should have had (and still could save for Republican cowardice and populist subversion).
National Conservatism, Donald Trump, J. D. Vance, and The Law of Unintended Consequences.* **
Last edition:
The 2024 Election, Part XXIII. It's a new race.
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