A prediction.
Rather, a series of predictions.
It'll bomb.
GOP politicians in Washington will go, because they have to.
It probably won't show many of Melania's fashion shoots, some of which I'd regard as pronographic.
By the end of the day, with no support, Trump will declare it to be the biggest movie success of all time.
Is anyone else thinking of the opera scene from Citizen Kane?
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Matthew, Chapter 24.
No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.
James Madison
January 2, 2026.
The United States v. Iran
We start off this year with the no more forever wars president threatening to intervene in Iran.
Iran is a bad actor, without a doubt, but what we'd particularly note here is that Trump's policy of intervention is beginning to look a lot like the Neo Con policy. A person can like that, or not, but it's not what he was promising at all. I'd heard various Trump supporters cite the "no more forever wars" line as (one of) their reasons for supporting him.
January 3, 2026
United States v. Venezuela
The United States hit Venezuela with a “large-scale strike” early Saturday and took Maduro and his wife prisoner.
No Declaration of War exists, of course, and there's no Congressional authorization for the use of force. This is, therefore, an illegal operation.
The news is too early to really make any definitive predictions about how this will turn out. Wars, however, tend to end when the attacked party decides they are over. Maybe this will tip the scales in Venezuela and things will change. Or maybe his followers dig in and carry on, in which case we are now committed to a wider conventional war, and perhaps a following guerilla war.
U.S. Delta Force seizes Venezuelan leader, sources say
Cont:
Trump's comments on the raid on Maduro:
As usual, when he reads a prepared statement, he sounds awful. While called to address the illegal attack in Venezuela, it meandered into the usual Trump mental mush addressing various Trump favorite topics and fantasies. Use of the National Guard in various states ended up being addressed by the clearly senile illegal occupant of the Oval Office.1
Trump has made it clear the U.S. intends to occupy Venezuela, apparently forgetting that simply seizing the head of state doesn't amount to a full surrender of anyone opposing a U.S. presence. This will require thousands of U.S. troops on a continent in which we've never had boots on the ground. People aligned with Maduro have no reason to cooperate with the US at all, and have plenty of reason not to.
Inside Venezuela there were protests over the U.S. action. Outside of the country Venezuelan expats celebrated the news.
Trump also made it clear that he intends to reverse the fifty year old nationalization of Venezuelan oil. Either Trump, or more likely somebody in his regime, has a real pre World War One view of the world, as this example of imperialism and gunboat diplomacy makes clear. Trump actually cited the Monroe Doctrine and his new security priorities.
Trump justified the action on the basis of ending Venezuelan drug exports to the U.S.
By way of a set of predictions, and knowing more about the use of military force that Donald Trump does, if the U.S. isn't in complete control of the country within thirty days, this will evolve into a guerilla war requiring no less than 100,000 U.S. troops. If the U.S. hasn't turned the country over to Venezuelans within one year, it'll evolve into a low grade guerilla war requiring no less than 50,000 boots on the ground.
January 4, 2026
United States v. Venezuela
So where are we now?
Yesterday it looked like, for awhile, that effectively what the US had done was to have mounted a coup of the Venezuelan government with the silent complicency of Venezuelan VP Delcy Rodríguez, sidestepping Nobel Peace Prize winner María Corina Machado Parisca.
Then came Trump's babbling senile statement about the operation.
Delcy Rodríguez was sworn in as the country's President. She's just as left wing and Maduro, and she immediately indicated that she regard Maduro as the President and that she's not cooperating with the US.
So, what was achieved? We don't know, but unless we're going to do a full scale invasion of Venezuela, all we may have done is replace one left wing leader with another.
A bit closer to home, sort of:
Well, of course they did. Was there any doubt?
January 5, 2026
Yemeni Civil War
Saudi backed forces retook Mukalla.
Nigeria
Gunmen killed 30 in Kasuwan-Daji.
Syria
Britain and France carried out a joint airstrike late Saturday on an underground facility where members of the ISIL were located.
United States v. Venezuela
Pope Leo XIV commented on Venezuelan independence yesterday, stating:
The good of the beloved Venezuelan people must prevail over every other consideration and lead us to overcome violence and to undertake paths of justice and peace, safeguarding the country’s sovereignty, ensuring the rule of law enshrined in the Constitution, respecting the human and civil rights of each person and of all, and working to build together a serene future of collaboration, stability, and concord, with special attention to the poorest who suffer because of the difficult economic situation.
Columbian guerilla groups Unión Camilista Ejército de Liberación Nacional (ELN) and FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) issued a warning to the US about the US having a presence in Venezuela.
FARC is a Communist guerilla movement while the ELN is a "Catholic Communist" or Liberation Theology guerilla movement. Columbia is their main focus, but they operate in Venezuela.
While the raid has been portrayed as lacking casualties on the U.S. side, U.S. troops were in fact wounded and have been air evacuated to the U.S.
Something being reported this morning:
January 6, 2022
United States v. Venezuela
Wyoming’s Barrasso, Lummis back Trump’s Venezuelan invasion, Hageman silent: Rep. Hageman, who’s running to replace Lummis, has been mum on the military strikes and Maduro’s capture.
Hageman's failure to say anything is really interesting. MAGA boosted the platform of "no more forever wars" but the US has been fighting everywhere, and is threatening to attack a NATO ally, Denmark, over Greenland, an act that would be deeply immoral and flat out insane. Indeed, the fact that the country is being lead by a mad man is increasingly clear, with most Republicans doing nothing about it.
Wyoming has had a strong commitment to the military. Indeed, an overly strong one as not only do an unusually large number of Wyomingites volunteer for military service, which is admirable, the state had nearly supported a military against the government attitude in recent years. Now, with it appearing that the US might send Wyoming's sons and daughters to die in Venezuelan jungles while doing something that will gut the state's oil industry, some may be having second thoughts. Hageman may be hedging her bets for her Senate run, or she may actually be among those who are horrified by the insane neo colonialism of the Trump interregnum.
January 6, 2026
Venezuela and Greenland.
There's a lot of weird war related news circulating today.
Trump claims that the government of Venezuela is going to, well, here:
Frankly, I don't believe that this will occur. Much of what Trump has been saying about Venezuela is a lie and I suspect this is too.
If it isn't a lie, Wyomingites are going to get another dope slap from the demented fool they voted for. It'll take the price of oil in the state for years. It's at $46.37, below profitability, right now.
Of course, the goal would be to depress the price of oil, which consumers in most locations want depressed, even though we ought to be weaning ourselves off of oil. But closer to home, this is another example of why Wyomingites are absolute idiots to vote for the GOP.
The Nobel Peace Prize winning Venezuelan woman who probably ought to be running the country is headed home. Hopefully she takes over the government, although there's every sign that the Venezuelan socialist party will continue to do so and not much will really change.
Trump, who is demented, is now threatening Greenland.
If we lived in a sane time they'd be taking him out of the Oval Office in a straight jacket, but the Republican Party is now largely bat shit crazy so there's a real chance we'll do this, even while, for the first time, some Republican leaders are dismissing it.
Trump needs to be removed via the 25th Amendment, and like yesterday.
January 8, 2026
United States v. Venezuela
It looks like Il Duce Don's intervention in Venezuela is receiving the same treatment the outbreak of the Second World War did in Nazi Germany
Readers of the epic The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich will recall that while many Germans were enthusiastic about Hitler coming to power, the public was not thrilled at all with the outbreak of World War Two. Quite the opposite, in fact.
The difference, maybe, is that democracy had already fled in Germany by 1939, whereas its trying to hold on in the United States.
cont:
Rubio Details Plan to Sell Venezuela’s Oil and Guide the Country’s Post-Maduro Future
This is being hailed in some quarters as a rational plan, fitting into sort of a trend line to express relief when Marco Rubio says something as opposed to Donald Trump.
Well, at least it's a plan.
The problem with it is that it really requires Venezuela's cooperation and there's no reason to believe that will be forthcoming. In this sense, it's likely to be like the 1954 Geneva plan for Vietnam, which everyone agreed was a nifty plan, and never stood a chance.
The main goal of the Socialist in Venezuela right now is no doubt to stay in power, which the Trump administration seems content to let them do. That may be because Rubio knows that removing them would involve a large-scale war.
So, we're going to sell some oil. We'll probably invest in their petroleum infrastructure. The whole thing will depress the price of oil, to the detriment of US producers, and most of the people we were complaining about in Venezuela keep their jobs.
cont:
The Senate voted to have a vote on a War Powers Resolution that would prohibit further military action in Venezuela.
Contrary to some reporting, this does not have an immediate effect of prohibiting further action in Venezuela, but there may very well be the votes to do that, in which case there are definitely enough to prohibit actions against Denmark in an insane effort to seize Greenland.
Trump is, of course, upset. This may very well take the wheels off of the Venezuelan go cart.
Also, in related news, the administration is proposing a $1.5T budget, that's trillion, for defense next year, which is also insane. The country doesn't have that kind of money. Frankly a person has to wonder if that is just some sort of bribe to the military, which may not be all that happy about some current events.
Some in the traditional conservative camp, on the other hand, are very enthusiastic over Marco Rubio and Venezuela, although no element of realism seems to have sunk into the facts that in reality, the country is run by the same political groups that were running it last week and there's very little that can be done about that other than a war of economic attrition.
January 9, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
The US has issued a warning to U.S. citizens in Ukraine to expect a significant Russian areas attack within the next few days.
United States v. Mexico
Trump threatened in a recent interview to hit drug cartel sites in Mexico, something the Mexican government will not welcome, and will likely resist.
This was something he asked about doing in his legitimate term, and was held back by the sane people in his first administration.
Iran
Iran is experiencing such widespread civil strife it appears to becoming unglued.
Misc:
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth,and Homeland Security advisor Stephen Miller have all moved on to military bases out of security concerns.
Iran
PAUL: So I would ask you, if a foreign country bombed our air defense missiles, captured and removed our president, and blockaded our country, would that be considered an act of war?RUBIO; We just don't believe that this operation comes anywhere close to the constitutional definition of war.PAUL: Well, would it be an act of war if someone did it to us? Nobody dies, a few casualties, they're in and out, boom, it's a perfect military operation. Would that be an act of war? Of course it would be an act of war.
And with that quite correct observation, we'll close out this edition.
Footnotes:
1. A real irony is present here in that Maduro was not the legitimate head of state, at this point, of Venezuela, and Donald Trump is not the legitimate head of state of the United States.
Related threads:
Last edition:
Trump is insane.
What's more, Trump is insane and everyone knows it. World leaders know it. His opponents know it. And, moreover, his supporters, know it.
He's driving us over a cliff, and everyone knows that.
He's the last pathetic gasp of the Baby Boomers, as we endure a nation by the Baby Boomers, Of the Baby Boomers, and for the Baby Boomers, enduring the legacy of a government attacked by Ronald Reagan and brought into fruition by Dixiecrats.
I've predicted that the 25th Amendment would be applied to him, and moreover, his mere presence in the White House was really a smokescreen for National Conservatives. If I was right, the moment now appears too late.
The United States has come to an end as a great nation.
It might be able to rebuild, but it won't be what it was. Nore should it be. A nation stupid enough to elect Donald Trump is no longer great.
The question is, how much damage do we allow him to do?
And I say "we" advisedly. Stuffed suits like Dr. John Barrasso and castrati Mike Johnson aren't going to do anything. His cabinet has people like scared Scott Bessent in it, who sound like they're terrified to be in public, or people who cheerfully shovel his oratorical vomit. Congress could act, but the make up the GOP in Congress is 100% eunuchs who roll over to have their bellies petted by Trump or go into the corner scared and pee.
The nation's leaders have completely failed it.
The question is not, at this point, how can this be salvaged. It cannot. The question is how much can be saved so that there's something to rebuild from when we reemerge in 2028 as a minor power, second rate nation, despised by the world.
The only thing, and it is the only thing, than can really save the nation now is mass protests. An epic strike that shut the nation down completely would be something the Republicans could not ignore.
We don't even seem to have the guts for that, however. We haven't seen anything like that since the 1960s and early 1970s.
We aren't much of a people anymore.
And I know so many people from Switzerland. Incredible place, incredible brilliant place. But I then realized that they're only good because of us.
Usually they say, 'he's a horrible dictator-type person.' But sometimes you need a dictator.
So are we really still playing around with this? Trump admits he's a dictator, and its obvious to everyone he's demented. There's no excuse left whatsoever for favoring this man remaining in office.
Let's reprise where we are, after the last several days.
Let's start off with this.
Ever since Congress demanded the Epstein files be released, most of which have not been, nearly every day brings a new horror. We started off with an invasion of a foreign power and removal of its head of state with no Congressional authorization, which is flatly illegal. In spite of the widely lauded praise for that, the raid only removed one man and his wife, while killing a bunch of people. The Socialist regime that man headed remains fully in power. Some may say its cooperating with Trump, but why would one criminal regime not cooperate with another if it benefits them both?
We were told at the time that we needed to do this as Venezuela was exporting drugs to the U.S. As soon as we kidnapped the leader, however, we were told that it was a great oil producing opportunity for the United States, and we are in fact seizing tankers and selling the oil, with the funds put in a bank in Qatar, outside those prying eyes in the U.S.
No sooner had that been accomplished than Donald Trump brought us right to the end of war with NATO, believing his own propaganda that the rest of the world would sit by if we seized Greenland, just as Germany thought nobody would fight over Poland in 1939, and Argentina thought the UK wouldn't fight over the Falklands in 1982. Indeed, the Falklands example is a particularly good one as the UK was actually moving toward an arrangement with Argentina before Argentina invaded, which ended that for all time.
While this was all going on, an ICE agent shot Renee Good three times killing her in Minneapolis. The mayor spoke out and now the mayor and the Governor are under Federal Criminal investigation by a corrupted justice system. Career Federal prosecutors are being fired, and even one of Trump's handpicked flunkies had walked out, although not over that.
Trump decided to go to Davos to lecture the Europeans, but as soon as his plane took off it returned with an "electrical problem".
Uh huh.
When he got to Davos suddenly he was no longer going to invade Greenland, but he was sticking to tariffs. . . until he suddenly didn't.
What message did the would be caudillo get when that plan returned.
There's a lot here to digest, but what we know is that Trump's actions do not benefit the United States and, as Mark Carney has stated, he's destroyed the post war order. The principal beneficiary of his actions is Russia, and nearly Russia alone The Russians may have pulled off the greatest example of spycraft of all time, but assisted by an American electorate that was made legitimately bitter by post 1973 events and made ignorant by actions of the much praised Ronald Reagan.
Reagan, to medical professionals, was showing signs of Alzheimer's in his second term. He was 83, however, and out of office when he admitted it to the public. His last public appearance, however, was in 1994, a couple of years after that, which is one that people who have viewed it lament. His appearance at that point in time wasn't any worse than Trump's right now.
Trump's behavior in the last two months has been nearly manic. Oh, let's be honest. It is manic. He very clearly, no matter what else is going on, has dementia. There's no question whatsoever. One person who knows him well, lawyer Ty Cobb, has stated:
I think there’s been a significant decline. He’s always been driven by narcissism. But I think the dementia and the cognitive decline are, you know, palpable, as do many experts, including many physicians.
Cobb also stated:
I don’t think there’s anybody outside of the United States who believes that Trump is sane.
So that's exactly where we are. We have a demented chief executive whose minions are not releasing a major file which his name shows up in, in violation of the law. His mind is complete mush and he launched us into one small war with little effect and nothing to be proud of, and nearly launched us into a major war with NATO which, in spite of our hubris, we may very well not have won (the U.S. hasn't actually won a war cleanly since the end of World War Two). Even if we had won it, which is not assured, it would have involved combat with Canada and occupying Canada would have entailed a terrorism campaign against the US that would kill Americans at home. Any such war would have besmirched our reputation forever and the world order has already been irreparably harmed to the detriment of Americans.
The man is insane and needs to be removed.
The question is why he isn't already gone. We can be quite assured that if there were sufficient votes, J. D. Vance, who sees his political fortunes evaporating by the minute and his current name likely to go down like Goering's would support it. So would Rubio, who has been mysteriously absent recently. But invoking the 25th Amendment would require the Vice President and a majority of the 15-member Cabinet ot declare the President the batshit crazy Trump unable to perform his duties. That means eight out of fifteen would have to go along with it. Those cabinet members are:
Secretary of State Marco Rubio
Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent
Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth
Attorney General Pam Bondi
Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins
Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick
Secretary of Labor Lori Chavez-DeRemer
Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.
Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Scott Turner
Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy
Secretary of Energy Chris Wright
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon
Secretary of Veterans Affairs Doug Collins
Secretary of Homeland Security Kristi Noem
Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency Lee Zeldin
Director of the Office of Management and Budget Russell Vought
Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard
Director of the Central Intelligence Agency John Ratcliffe
United States Trade Representative Jamieson Greer
Administrator of the Small Business Administration Kelly Loeffler
Chief of Staff Susie Wiles
We took a look at whom we thought might be willing to act to save then nation some time ago, but frankly every day that goes by makes this worse. For example, we thought that Bessent might be willing to go along, but by now he's so tainted by the shit he's had to spout out because Rubio, probably, is refusing to do so, that for many of these people they're at the point where they're just going down in defeat in the bunker. A few of these people, in addition, are really bad people and hardcorse believes in what they're doing.
So, until he's drooling and hitting on Kristi Noem, this is just going to get worse.
Congress could act, and if it was a Democratic Congress it undoubtedly would. Trump's only in office as Joe Biden moronically believed that his own dementia was somehow not there, a common trait of those who have dementia and the electorate blamed the Democrats for a lot of things, like inflation, that were outside of their control, and some things they really didn't like, like the whole transgender thing, that they were in control of. A totally befuddled Trump still knows that this November the GOP is going to be punished for the economy, for average people, getting worse, and he can't gasp that people really don't care if fat cats get fatter, which is the only sort of economic news that means anything to him. By this point in time an American electorate, which has a notoriously short memory, sees ICE in the streets, ICE shooting women in the head, Trump insulting the entire world, and their economic future going down the toilet. His plan is to try to disrupt the 2026 election, or even suspend it if he can, which he can't.
A sane group of Republican members of Congress would act right now to impeach Trump, like they did when Nixon was in office. But current Republicans in Congress are nearly all anemic castrati, with those at the top, like John Thune and John Barrasso providing prime example. Barrasso couldn't find his courage if he'd deposited in a safe deposit box. They're depending on the Democrats taking control i November so they can return to the more comfortable role of complaining about Democrats, and if the country goes in the shitter in the meantime, well at least they can hope to retain their careers.
January 24, 2026
A former Trump staffer from his first term is expressing concern that he'll launch a nuclear war, and reveals that in his first term the country came close to a war with North Korea.
January 26, 2026
While the country reeled from the shooting of Alex Pretti, the Mad King Donny was musing on the ballroom that will never be built.
Absolutely insane. Blood literally in the streets and this doddering buffoon is babbling about a structure whose refuse is going to be shoved into a big pile by a D11 and then dumped in a refuse pile.
How pathetic.
The NYT editorial from yesterday:
January 28, 2025
We stopped the conflict between Cambodia and Armenia. It was just starting and it was a bad one.
Donald Trump.
Cambodia and Armenia couldn't fight a war against each other if they both wanted to.
His mind is completely shot.
And with that really weird comment, we'll close out this portion of the roller coast ride with Mad King Donald.
The Wyoming races went from speculative to active virtually overnight, thanks to Sen. Lummis' announcement that she was not going to run again.
We'll note, before looking at the state of the races, that not a single Democrat has announced for any of these offices so far. It is early, of course, but hopefully some do. Otherwise, given recent examples, the races tend to be "how far right can we go", which isn't conducive to democracy or health politics in general.
December 24, 2025
Cynthia Lummis political future was barely deceased before the opportunities that it presented were being exploited. It's caused a lot of shifting about and pondering, as this news article relates:
Degenfelder 'Strongly Considering' Run For Governor, Others Ponder Higher Office
We'll take a look, therefore, at where we current are in the 2026 races, now that the charge has started.
U.S. Senate
GOP
Harriet Hageman.
Our prediction came true amazingly fast. Harriet Hageman announced for the Senate yesterday.
Well. . . of course she did. She nearly had to, before other state Republicans volunteered to pick up the Senatorial baton and run past her, which is how Lummis obtained the seat in the first place, announcing before Liz Cheney could. And in doing so, she immediately picked up endorsements from those whom she should have feared would run, and who very well may have.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction Megan Degenfelder, for instance, endorsed Hageman, stating:
She is the fighter that we need to defend the conservative movement in this country and in Wyoming, I endorse Congresswoman Hageman for her campaign for US Senate. Harriet has advanced our Wyoming values as a member of the US House, protecting Wyoming industries and our way of life.
Degenfelder is somebody who clearly has political ambitions beyond the office she holds, as noted below.
Chuck Gray, who clear does also, also came immediately out of the chute to endorse Hageman, although probably nobody really cares about Gray's endorsements. He stated:
She will do the same as our US Senator. Congresswoman Hageman has my complete and total endorsement for US Senate.
There were, as we noted, already two filed candidates, although we can now doubt that one of them will go for the Senate, as we'll discuss below.
Hageman also picked up the endorsement of Donald Trump, which in spite of Wyoming being the state that is the most enamored with the illegal occupant of the White House, probably doesn't really mean all that much. As Wyoming is also the the state with the highest percentage of citizens who are enrolled in the AHCA, by the primary date that may be a bit of a liability, if Wyomingites wake up to the fact that they're played the fool by Donald Trump nearly daily.1
The local state of the economy might play a role in that as well. The price of Wyoming oil today is $43.91/bbl. Hageman has already made a statement about Wyoming contributing to the great state of the economy (as she sees it) due to energy, but the fact of the matter is that the current price is a good $20.00/bbl below what Wyoming needs it to be in order for Wyoming crude to be economic. Nationally oil is at $58.60/bbl, which is right at the break even point. Moreover, if the agricultural markets decline, and save for beef they're in bad shape, she might end up bearing the brunt there as well.
Reid Rasner
Rasner filed forever ago, and he's running for something, but what isn't exactly clear. Earlier it was apparently Lummis' seat, after having failed to push Barrasso out of his. Now it appears, however, that he's reconsidering.
Rasner is simply deluding himself on his chances for any office, but it's not for want of trying.
Jimmy Skovgard.
Nobody really knows anything about Skovgard, but he is, or at least was, running.
U.S. House of Representatives
GOP
Gavin Solomon
One dipshit carpetbagger of New York Gavin Solomon has filed as an annoyance.
The state needs to do something about out of state residents running for Wyoming offices, as in make it criminal.
Other possibilities.
It's clear that Chuck Gray, discussed in more depth below, has his eyes set on this seat. He has to run for it, or for Governor, or his political career is over.
If Gray runs, other Republicans will as they won't wont to see him in this office. My guess is that Casper's Tim Stubson may do so, and might whether Gray runs for this office or not. It's likely some current members of the legislature will as well, including both moderate Republicans and Freedom Caucus members.
Governor
The Lummis reshuffling of the deck has caused politicians to reassess their aims, as we're very quickly seeing. That's impacting the race for Governor.
GOP
Eric Barlow
Barlow is running, and is the front runner. He's a rancher and a traditional conservative. He wisely got out in this race first, and has been campaigning for awhile. So far, he's pulled way ahead of the pack.
Brent Bien
Bien was a career Marine Corps officer and is running on the archetypical "I spent my entire career elsewhere sucking on the Government tit and I'm here to tell you why you won't get to".
That's really harsh, but in recent veterans who had guaranteed pay and guaranteed retirement have come into or back to Wyoming and campaigned on hating the government, which if they do, they should have resigned their careers and worked in the uncertain world of American capitalism like the rest of us. Their position is really hypocritical. They've never had to punch a clock or write down their time daily, or worry about income and expenses.
Bien, I'll note, was a Marine Corps aviator and retired as a Colonel. That's honorable service, which fully qualifies him to be a Marine Corps aviator.
Bien is a figure of the far right, as would be predictable. Most of the returning or imported candidates who are veterans have been.
Meggan Degenfelder
The State Sueprintendant of Education indicates that she's "Strongly Considering" running, which practically means that she is. She was probably pondering this move all along, but may have been hedging her bets on inside information to see what Hageman would do. If Hageman hadn't announced for Senate, she probably would have, and she likely would have been a strong candidate. It's surprising for that reason that she didn't announce for the House.
I have mixed feelings about Degenfelder, who has tacked to the generally far right, but not so much that she's a Freedom Caucus type.
Reid Rasner
Rasner has filed early for Senate, as noted above, which has been ignored by the press, but is now publicly indicating he many run for Governor. A person has to wonder if Delgenfelder's announcement will cause him to back off.
He's sure running for something.
Other possibilities.
Chuck Gray is running for something, and has taken a page out of Rasner's book and has recently run a television ad in which he boosts himself without saying what he's running for.
Gray has a loyal pack of acolytes, like Donald Trump, but he's worn increasingly thin over while he's been Secretary of State. He's locked horns constantly with Gov. Gordon and other members of the State Land Board, which means that if Degenfelder runs she's going to skewer him like a pot sticker. He's not from Wyoming and doesn't come across as a guy who could survive in the state for more than a brief vacation if he wasn't backed by family money, although perhaps that's deceptive. He rose to his current office in part by backing election lies and has tried to make the mission of the Secretary of State's office to return Wyoming elections to the year 411. He's intensely disliked by a lot of people, and openly so. While in office he's operated the same way that Rep. Jim Allemand has, by claiming to be from the far right but then embracing local environmental issues when convenient.
A dark horse candidate right now would be Governor Gordon himself. While theoretically blocked by term limits, it's well known that they are unconstitutional and would not survive a legal challenge. Having said that, the entry of Barlow into the race would strongly suggest that Gordon will not attempt a run.
Treasurer
GOP
Curt Meier
Curt Meier is running for reelection and will be successful.
December 25, 2025
Hageman's Senate Run Reignites Criticisms Over Public Lands
As well it should.
December 30, 2025
Chuck Gray, surprising noone, announced that he's running for Congress. In announcing, the fish out of water Californian stated:
I’m running for Congress to continue fighting for Wyoming’s way of life. With Congresswoman Harriet Hageman running for U.S. Senate, Wyoming needs a representative who will build on her strong record, advance our shared Wyoming values, and advance the Trump agenda that has delivered the largest margin of victory in the nation in three straight presidential elections.
Chuck Gray announces bid for U.S. House
On the last item, Gray fully endorsed the lie that Trump beat Biden, and is still apparently wedded to the outright fabrication, along with some new "margin of victory" lies.
The Californian is a Freedom Caucus member, and was immediately endorsed by them. He released a video for his campaign that makes it clear that he's awkward in Wyoming settings, as to be expected, and fully wedded to MAGA and its hero, Donald Trump.
January 3, 2026
Reid Rasner has announced that he isn't running for Governor but will announce what he's running for this week.
Footnotes
*Regarding the coloration on this post, blue is recognized worldwide as the color of the right, and red of the left. In the U.S. in recent years the opposite has been the case as some total bufador reversed it. At least in this thread, we're not doing that.
1. Regarding the primary:
Party Changes
The state of Wyoming passed legislation affecting when a registered voter is allowed to change their party affiliation.
- You MUST appear in person in the Elections office on or before May 13, 2026 to declare or change your party affiliation.
- NO party changes at the polls on Primary Election Day.
- Qualified voters who are not yet registered will still be able to register and choose their party on the day of the Primary Election.
Absentee Voting
The timeframe for voting absentee has shortened from 45 days to 28 days.
- Absentee ballot request may be made by phone, mail, email, online or in person.
- Your ID is required to vote in person or to pick up a ballot.
Absentee voting for the Primary Election: July 21 - August 17, 2026
Absentee voting for the General Election: October 6 - November 2, 2026
January 6, 2026
George Conway, former Republican, former spouse of Kellyanne Fitzpatrick, and a conservative is running as a Democrat for Congress in NY-12:
January 8, 2026
Reid Rasmer announced that he's throwing himself in a flaming blaze of misbegotten hubris ignited glory into the race for the U.S. House.
So we now have two far right candidates who will be in favor every stupid thing Donald Trump says even as he takes steps to wreck the American standing in the world, screw the Wyoming economy, and wreck the environment Wyoming depends on.
There's room for a moderate candidate, or a conservative one, here.
My prediction is that this will get nasty. Chuck Gray has been full of shit so long that he won't be able to help himself and he'll start slinging it like a zoo chimpanzee Rasner will ignore it, but will seek the embrace from the political right, which will reject it as he's an acknowledged homosexual.
That Rasner is "out" and unapologetic about it, while not making a big deal about it, is really to his credit actually. His sexual orientation does appear to have been the source of a vile rumor campaign against him which he justifiably brought suit over, but that entire episode reveals a lot about the state of the GOP. The person sued was himself the father, in Florida (most of the Freedom Caucus are actual or intellectual Confederate ex pats), of a child by way of an underaged teenagef girl when he was an of age teenager. There's a pretty strong anti homosexual bias in the GOP far right which really, at the same time, in spite of its embrace of Evangelical Christianity is basically okay with sexual immorality, at least if its of a conventional type. But if people are going to raise flags on the issue, they ought to explain the mysteries they present themselves.
That's not the normal Wyoming norm, where such questions are not usually openly asked, but its probably time that they are. Rep. Hageman has for years indicated how strong family values are to her, but she has no children of her own. Nephew's and nieces aren't substitutes for your own children. There may be a tragic medical reason for this, but it could be avoidance for career, which is neither traditional or admirable.
This campaign will focus in people's minds, although they will not admit it, that Chuck Gray, age 36, isn't married. It's not the case that everyone has to be married, and at one time it wasn't regarded as particularly abnormal that a 36 year old man or woman would not be married and have no known significant other, but following the Sexual Revolution it has been. And frankly it is odd. What does that say about his character that he can draw such public attention, but not a suitable spouse (and no, I'm not claiming he's a homosexual, but rather that being unmarried at 36 is odd).
Nasty questions?
Yes, but in an age where Wyoming elected somebody like Bill Allemand, and in one in which Republican figures where the symbols of Crusaders on their chest, when those Crusaders would have found them to be heretics, it might actually be time to ask them.
January 2026
This news makes puts Degenfelder on the don't vote for, for anything again, every list.
‘RUN MEGAN, RUN!’ Trump Promises Endorsement If Degenfelder Runs For Governor
Involving a current client:
In Gordon's defense, all sentient life forms would like to invite Gray outside and point him back towards California, which is what I'm going to assume Gordon meant.
January 12, 2026
Megan Degenfelder is now officially running for Governor. She claims she announced after an insane clown urged her to do so on X.
January 13, 2026
Former Democratic Alaska Rep. Mary Peltola is running for the Senate.
January 14, 2026
Jillian Balow, former Wyoming Superintendent of Public Instruction announced for the House.
I don't know what I think of Balow, other than she's actually from Wyoming, and a better candidate than Rasner or Gray. When she was Superintendent of Public Instruction, I didn't pay all that much attention to the position. She must have been fairly well thought of as she was recruited away by Virginia, where the position is not elected.
Balow was, by my recollection, a breath of fresh air compared to Cindy Hill who came before her, who was the first Wyoming politician who fell into what we might now regard as the Wyoming Freedom Caucus camp, although it wasn't called that at the time, and probably didn't even really exist. Hill ended up being very controversial and hugely unpopular, and should have served as a warning sign as to what was to come.
So, right now for the House, we have:
Chuck Gray, who is a carpetbagging founding member of the Freedom Caucus.
Reid Rasner, who is a gadfly.
Jillian Balow, who is the only palatable candidate to announce so far.
Well, that is that Solomon guy, but he's a joke. And a Daniel Verl Workman has done so as well, as an Independant, and he's a joke.
Following up on yesterday's news, the Demented Caudillos endorsement of Degenfelder probably means that unthinking MAGAs are now in her corner, dooming the campaign of Brent Bien. Frankly, that's a good thing as both Degenfelder and Barlow are leagues better than Bien. Having said that, Barlow is clearly a much better choice than Degenfelder who is still pretending to drink the Koolaide.
January 17, 2026
It didn't take Gray long to go full weasel:
My record shows that I’m the only candidate in this race that has the track record of getting com mon sense conservative priorities done. My track record is in sharp con trast to the others in the race. Jillian Barlow [sic] has a Liz Cheney 2.0 profile.
Having a Cheney 2.0 profile would be a good reason to vote for Barlow, but that's pretty much baloney. Gray went on to accuse Reid of being all talk.
The Trib reports that David Giralt, a former advisor to Lummis, plans on joining the race. I don't know much about him, but he's noted to be a veteran, which isn't a reason to vote for or against him. He's also a member of the Knights of Columbus, which means he's Catholic. Gray is also Catholic, which doesn't seem to have kept him from telling some whopping lies in the past.
January 20, 2026
We failed to even note him, but after reading the article about him, he would have been on our don't vote for list, fitting into a whopping three categories.
January 21, 2026
Forcibly retired Admiral Nancy Lacore is running for South Carolina's 1st Congressional District.
I don't know anything about the district, but what this symbolizes is that Trump's enemies lists are lining up to get into Congress.
We will conclude this edition with this entry.
January 22, 2026
Skovgard, whom we mentioned above, is in fact running for the U.S. Senate.
Skovgard publishes a blog, which might reveal his positions on things. Otherwise he's really a bit of a mystery right now.
One thing about Skovgard is that, right now, the other two candidates in this race, Hageman and Rasner, are on the don't vote for list. That may simply be because we don't know anything about him. Having said that, if the election were held today, we'd seriously consider Skovgard as we won't vote for the other two.
January 24, 2026
One Joseph Kibler is running for Governor as an independent. He's a Californian who moved in and is running what appears to be, more or ess, a religion based campaign. It'll go nowhere.
January 28, 2026
A Hageman event sounds like it was poorly attended and didn't go really well:
Rep. Hageman touts Wyo earmarks, faces fiery ICE questions in Casper
People didn't show up, and jeered Hageman on her response to 4th Amendment violations in Minnesota and her delusional response on climate change.
When she left the stage early, after a round of ICE questions, Hageman was booed.
Of course, predictably, Jane Ifland appeared to represent Democrats from 1973.
January 29, 2026
Sen. Amy Klobuchar is running for Governor of Minnesota. Klobuchar has run for the Democratic nomination for President in the past.
Related threads:
Last edition:
