The Best Post of the Week of March 8, 2026. The Week King Donald's War went astray for lack of purpose.

It won't go down as a great week in American history.  King Donald committed us to a war which it does not look like we can win.

No Trumps will die in this war, but a lot of other people will.

So, what were its bloodstained highlights?  Let's take a look.

First we'll note something we failed to.  Country Joe McDonald died this past week, sort of a poetic end, in a way.  He was a veteran of the Navy.

Not Trumps have served in the Navy.  Well of course not.

We finished up 1914 to 1926, by finishing up, 1916.

Wednesday, March 8, 1916. Villa crosses the border.

Thursday, March 9, 1916. Germany declares war on Portugal,

Let's just admit, by this point, the only people who don't think the Trump Administration is the worst administration in American history are in it, and even some of them probably think that.

Ascendant Ignorance in the Age of Donald Trump. Ignoramus Watch Part 3. The Quack Edition.

An event I sort of wish had never happened:

Friday, March 10, 1876, "Mr. Watson, come here—I want to see you".

Friday, March 10, 1911. Zapata joins the revolution.

We looked at some movies.

Movies In History: Der Tiger

We looked to an historical example regarding conscription.

In the event of conscription (and Trumpite insiders say the demented octogenarian is considering it) conscript ICE first, and then deploy them.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 4. Sumer and Elam.

Movies In History: The Siege of Firebase Gloria.

We decided to punish our own political party, and we're not alone in that.

Giving up completely on the GOP.

I've noted my political history here before.

I'm a Westerner and an Irish Catholic.  That informs my vote pretty heavily.

When I first registered to vote Ronald Reagan was President.  Marine Corps Raider veteran Ed Herschler, a Democrat, was the Governor of Wyoming.  D-Day veteran Teno Roncolio, also a Democrat, was our Congressman.  Republicans Malcolm Wallop and Alan Simpson were our Senators.  

That was sort of the political landscape here at the time.   More Republicans than Democrats, but there were still Democrats, and those Democrats tended to be pretty tough conservative people.  Republicans were already tacking off into batshit crazy economic theories but they weren't completely bathed in them yet.

I registered as a Republican.

I didn't stay a Republican for a really long time.  I don't recall when exactly I switched parties, but by the time I was at the University of Wyoming, I had registered Democratic.  I stayed in the Democratic Party for a long time.  I was still a Democrat when I became a lawyer and I know that I was when I was married.  However, sometime after that, I couldn't stand the sea of blood the Democratic Party had become.  I became an independent.

As an independent you missed the primaries pretty much, however, and starting in the Clinton era in general Wyoming Democrats began to drift over to the GOP.  After all, the mainstream of the Democratic Party wasn't all that different from the traditional mainstream of the local GOP.  After awhile, I registered as a Republican.

Little far right Dixiecrats like Chuck Gray like to scream that people like me are "RINOs", when in fact they're the malignant innovation into the GOP.  That element hadn't entered the GOP at the time I was first in it, and didn't for a long time.  Gray himself, who nobody really knew anything about, was probably the first, followed by Jeanette Ward, who served one term in the legislature before losing a bid to retain her seat.  While she lost, that showed the direction things were headed in.  Carpetbaggers who knew nothing about their state moved in and wanted to convert it into pre 1964 Alabama.

It's not as if the Democrats stood still.  As moderate Wyoming Democrats left the party, it too became delusional.  If the Republicans became increasingly fascistic or Dixiecratic, the Democrats lived intellectually in the Greenwich Villages' Stonewall Inn in 1969.  It made going back into the Democratic Party an outright impossibility for people like myself, particularly as they lashed themselves increasingly to abortion and perversion. 

More recently, I'll note, that seems to be wearing off.  The Democrats are still "pro choice", but they don't talk much about it.  For that matter Republicans who were really gung ho on being pro life have sort of lost their fire for that as well, following the lead of Orange Mussolini.

What the Republican Party, nationally, has become is flat out insane.  No thinking person can be a member of it and be comfortable.

There are still good Republicans here in Wyoming.  They began a big fight against the Dixiecrats prior to the legislature and largely prevailed this session, in spite of the fact that the diehard adherents of The Lost Cause were theoretically in control of the solons.  That should give local Republicans who aren't literally whistling Dixie some hope.

But with the current national Trumpites in control, the line has been drawn. 

For years people like Dixiecrat Chuck Gray, or Dixicrat Bextel, have claimed that the Republican Party here was infiltrated with Democrats. Well, it was. They're the Democrats.  Democrats from 1960 Alabama. They just don't know it.  But the screaming lunacy that they've espoused does have an effect after awhile.  Yell at people that "you are a RINO" for long enough, and they'll take it up.

I'm remaining registered in the GOP.  Chuck Gray's efforts to disenfranchise voters has been enough for me in and of itself not to change registrations.  Frankly, if I was to take a run at the House of Representatives, and I've thought about it, I would switch parties as right now that would give a person a place in the November election no matter what.  But I'm not going to do that.  I'm old, worn out, and very tired. 

So I'm remaining in the GOP in no small part so that I can vote for the decent primary candidates, of which there are some right now.

At this point, merely stating that you are "pro Trump" will be enough to cross my vote for you off the list.  At least three House candidates are promising to be Trump's biggest lover, and they're all of the list.  I hope I run into some of them during their campaigns.  I probably will.

And I've already quit giving MAGAs in my midst slack.  Frankly, since the start of the assault on Iran, that's been easy, as the "never war" MAGAs can't explain that one without sounding like hypocrites, and they know it.  Even a few have begun to look as if Valentines to Trump weren't a good idea.

But in the Fall.  I'm not voting for any Republicans for anything.

That won't exactly be easy.  So far here only one candidate from the Democratic Party has signed on to run for a statewide office.  He has my vote even though I like the only Republican whose announced for the same position.  And just because I'm not voting for a Republican doesn't mean I will vote for Democrats.  In my state house district a really decent Republican holds the seat and a young woman from the Democratic Party has announced against him. She's already on the sea of blood ticket.  I can't vote for her, but I won't vote for the Republican I've voted for many times before.

To vote for Republicans in 2026 you have to accept that a low IQ, deranged, octogenarian should have complete dictatorial control over the Federal Government, can start major wars on his own, can demolish parts of the White House as he has the tastes of a bordello owner, can cause the hiding of files on a major pedophile ring, and can have a domestic army occupy the streets.  It also means you have to be willing to sacrifice the environment of the planet for scientific denial.  You have to be willing to endorse lies at a never before seen rate, which makes you a liar yourself if you do. 

I can't go there.

On a bright spot, the Confederate dominated legislature went home routed.

The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 6. The headed off at the pass edition.

Movies (Television) in History: Dawson's Creek.

Pollice Verso. The 2026 Political Negative Endorsement. The Don't Vote For List.

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 5th Edition, part two: The Saddle Up Edition

A fellow traveler pondered the long strange trip of the NatCons and J. D. Vance.

A theory very close to the one I've advanced here.

Sunday, March 14, 1926. Reddy Kilowatt introduced. Manhunt in Natrona County.

The Administration Is Leaking Like a Sieve | Explainer

 

The war started wrecking the economy.

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 2. The "War, what's it good for?" edition.

Perverts were hitting on Chloe Winters.

Have some of you seen any daylight recently?

 

This is amusing.  Chloe Winters is not unattractive, but the married Galwegian dresses like what she is, a market gardener.  It's a dirty job.  Her only adornment, normally, is a cross denoting her Christianity.

The fact that she's getting hit on for gardening videos. . . well it's just sad.

It became clear that Donald Trump had committed the nation to war on the concept that the Iranians would just collapse, even though he was warned that they would not.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2026. Part 5. Trump's forever war. King Donald's War, Part 1.

Last edition:

Best post of the week of March 1, 2026.

Saturday, November 28, 1925. Grand Old Opry premiers.

Nashville's WSM radio premiered the WSM Barn Dance which became the Grand Ole Opry.

It was a Saturday.

The French government reigned after failing to reach a settlement with the US over war debt.

Last edition:

Friday, November 27, 1925. Hill Packing.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1928, 1930s, Afghanistan, Diplomacy, Economics, Equine Transportation, Feral Horses, Germany, Imperial Russian Army, Industry, Russian Civil War, USSR, Wyoming (Casper)

Jordan Smart, "Who Would Jesus Bomb?" // GemsOnVHS™

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, September 10, 1945. Eh? (Additional Labels)

Lex Anteinternet: Monday, September 10, 1945. Eh?: Post war news items were getting a bit weird. Mike the Headless chicken was ineffectively beheaded, and would go on to become sort of a frea...

Saturday, September 1, 1945. Truman addresses the nation. This Land is Your Land.

Truman addressed the nation by radio.

The thoughts and hopes of all America—indeed of all the civilized world—are centered tonight on the battleship Missouri. There on that small piece of American soil anchored in Tokyo Harbor the Japanese have just officially laid down their arms. They have signed terms of unconditional surrender.

Four years ago, the thoughts and fears of the whole civilized world were centered on another piece of American soil—Pearl Harbor. The mighty threat to civilization which began there is now laid at rest. It was a long road to Tokyo—and a bloody one.

We shall not forget Pearl Harbor.

The Japanese militarists will not forget the U.S.S. Missouri.

The evil done by the Japanese war lords can never be repaired or forgotten. But their power to destroy and kill has been taken from them. Their armies and what is left of their Navy are now impotent.

To all of us there comes first a sense of gratitude to Almighty God who sustained us and our Allies in the dark days of grave danger, who made us to grow from weakness into the strongest fighting force in history, and who has now seen us overcome the forces of tyranny that sought to destroy His civilization.

God grant that in our pride of the hour, we may not forget the hard tasks that are still before us; that we may approach these with the same courage, zeal, and patience with which we faced the trials and problems of the past four years.

Our first thoughts, of course—thoughts of gratefulness and deep obligation—go out to those of our loved ones who have been killed or maimed in this terrible war. On land and sea and in the air, American men and women have given their lives so that this day of ultimate victory might come and assure the survival of a civilized world. No victory can make good their loss.

We think of those whom death in this war has hurt, taking from them fathers, husbands, sons, brothers, and sisters whom they loved. No victory can bring back the faces they longed to see.

Only the knowledge that the victory, which these sacrifices have made possible, will be wisely used, can give them any comfort. It is our responsibility—ours, the living—to see to it that this victory shall be a monument worthy of the dead who died to win it.

We think of all the millions of men and women in our armed forces and merchant marine all over the world who, after years of sacrifice and hardship and peril, have been spared by Providence from harm.

We think of all the men and women and children who during these years have carried on at home, in lonesomeness and anxiety and fear.

Our thoughts go out to the millions of American workers and businessmen, to our farmers and miners—to all those who have built up this country's fighting strength, and who have shipped to our Allies the means to resist and overcome the enemy.

Our thoughts go out to our civil servants and to the thousands of Americans who, at personal sacrifice, have come to serve in our Government during these trying years; to the members of the Selective Service boards and ration boards; to the civilian defense and Red Cross workers; to the men and women in the USO and in the entertainment world—to all those who have helped in this cooperative struggle to preserve liberty and decency in the world.

We think of our departed gallant leader, Franklin D. Roosevelt, defender of democracy, architect of world peace and cooperation.

And our thoughts go out to our gallant Allies in this war: to those who resisted the invaders; to those who were not strong enough to hold out, but who, nevertheless, kept the fires of resistance alive within the souls of their people; to those who stood up against great odds and held the line, until the United Nations together were able to supply the arms and the men with which to overcome the forces of evil.

This is a victory of more than arms alone. This is a victory of liberty over tyranny.

From our war plants rolled the tanks and planes which blasted their way to the heart of our enemies; from our shipyards sprang the ships which bridged all the oceans of the world for our weapons and supplies; from our farms came the food and fiber for our armies and navies and for our Allies in all the corners of the earth; from our mines and factories came the raw materials and the finished products which gave us the equipment to overcome our enemies.

But back of it all were the will and spirit and determination of a free people—who know what freedom is, and who know that it is worth whatever price they had to pay to preserve it.

It was the spirit of liberty which gave us our armed strength and which made our men invincible in battle. We now know that that spirit of liberty, the freedom of the individual, and the personal dignity of man, are the strongest and toughest and most enduring forces in all the world.

And so on V-J Day we take renewed faith and pride in our own way of life. We have had our day of rejoicing over this victory. We have had our day of prayer and devotion. Now let us set aside V-J Day as one of renewed consecration to the principles which have made us the strongest nation on earth and which, in this war, we have striven so mightily to preserve.

Those principles provide the faith, the hope, and the opportunity which help men to improve themselves and their lot. Liberty does not make all men perfect nor all society secure. But it has provided more solid progress and happiness and decency for more people than any other philosophy of government in history. And this day has shown again that it provides the greatest strength and the greatest power which man has ever reached.

We know that under it we can meet the hard problems of peace which have come upon us. A free people with free Allies, who can develop an atomic bomb, can use the same skill and energy and determination to overcome all the difficulties ahead.

Victory always has its burdens and its responsibilities as well as its rejoicing.

But we face the future and all its dangers with great confidence and great hope. America can build for itself a future of employment and security. Together with the United Nations, it can build a world of peace rounded on justice, fair dealing, and tolerance.

As President of the United States, I proclaim Sunday, September the second, 1945, to be V-J Day—the day of formal surrender by Japan. It is not yet the day for the formal proclamation of the end of the war nor of the cessation of hostilities. But it is a day which we Americans shall always remember as a day of retribution—as we remember that other day, the day of infamy.

From this day we move forward. We move toward a new era of security at home. With the other United Nations we move toward a new and better world of cooperation, of peace and international good will and cooperation.

God's help has brought us to this day of victory. With His help we will attain that peace and prosperity for ourselves and all the world in the years ahead.

The speech, set out above, declared September 2 VJ Day, the third such day to claim that title. 

The War Department issues a report regarding an anticipated world wide coal shortage.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—September 1, 1940 & 1945: US soldiers liberate two civilian internment camps in the Tokyo area. US ends military rule in the Philippines and turns over civil administration to President Sergio Osmeña. Britain reduces clothing ration to 3 coupons pe

Military rule in the Philippine government ended.

A temporary government was established by the British in Hong Kong.

The Xinghua Campaign ended in communist victory in China and the Battle of Dazhongji began.

The lyrics to This Land Is Your Land by Woody Guthrie were published.  The song had been written in 1940, but not released.  The recording would not be released until 1953.

In my view, it's one of the greatest American folk songs.

Last edition:

Friday, August 31, 1945. New dances.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Diplomacy, Finland, Japan, Marcus Island, Music, Occupation of Japan, Rock Music, United States, USSR, World War Two

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Wednesday, January 29, 1975. American terrorism of the 1970s.

The Weather Underground bombed the State Department building in Washington, D.C.

Logo of the Weather Underground

The far left terrorist organization came out of the chaos of the 1960s which continued on, now mostly forgotten, into a violent early 1970s.  We're on the verge, I fear, of eclipsing that era in violence, although ironically the party attacking the government now is the populist now in power.  Given as the path we're currently on, in lots of ways, can't continue, there's real reason for concern about where the Trump interregnum's violence against the United States will lead, and if it will result in further societal violence.

In interesting aspect of this is what Gene Shepherd noted long ago, extremist meet in their extremism.  We've never had extremist in power before, however.

The group took its name from Bob Dylan's Subterranean Homesick Blues, which ironically is associated in my mind with well to do old lawyers who came of age in the 1960s singing it, as if any of their later lives reflected what they claimed to have believed in earlier days.

Last edition:

Tuesday, January 28, 1975. Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown.

Labels: 1970s, 1975, Cartoons, Japan, Petroleum, Sakhalin Island, television, USSR

Bob Dylan's 115th Dream (Take 2, Complete)

A song, now strangely, for our age.

Friday, January 16, 1925. Leadbelly released from prison and some Italians got to vote a lot.

Huddie Ledbetter, aka "Lead Belly", was granted a full pardon by Texas Governor Pat Morris Neff  Neff for having served the minimum seven years of his prison sentence for the 1918 killing of Will Stafford, a relative of his, in a fight over a woman.

It was a least his second period of incarceration, with  his first being in 1915 for carrying a handgun, something that would not be a crime now.  

While in prison for homicide, he'd be stubbled in the neck by another inmate, resulting in a permanent scar.

The pardon came about due to Ledbetter writing the Governor and seeking the same, and the Governor visiting him more than once in prison.

Ledbetter would return to prison in 1930 for attempted homicide and 1939 for assault.

Perhaps not a pacific man, he was the greatest American folk musician and one of the greatest blue musicians of all time.  He was personally responsible for the survival of the twelve string guitar.  He was principally a bluesman, but the blues had not quite stabilized into its form at the time, and not all of his music fits the genera.  Indeed, this so much the case that at least one of his songs that is typically preformed as a blue piece, The Midnight Special, was not performed quite that way by Leadbelly.  He became known to the general public due to John Lomax's recordings of him in 1933, at which time he was again in prison.

Leadbelly was born in Louisiana in 1888 or 1889, and died of Lou Gehrigs disease in 1946 at age 61 or 62.  He took to music early and learned to paly the mandolin, accordion, guitar, harmonica, Jew’s harp, piano, and organ, with his principal instructor's being his uncles, Bob and Terrell Ledbetter.

His songs are widely preformed to this day, and once were part of the American music canon taught to school children.  Interestingly enough, he's associated with the first recorded use of the word "woke", in a spoken item after a song in which he stated; "So I advise everybody, be a little careful when they go along through there—best stay woke, keep their eyes open."

Italy passed a bill giving double votes to academians, professors, those with diplomas, knights, military officers, those with any military decorations, officeholders, certain business personnel, all those paying a direct tax of 100 lira or more, and fathers of at least five children, triple votes to members of the royal family, members of high nobility, cardinals, highly decorated war veterans, high officeholders, or anyone who met three conditions for double votes. 

Last edition:

Thursday, January 15, 1925. Trotsky gets canned, Ross addresses the legislature.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, 1925 Wyoming Legislative Session, Communism, James Dean Effect, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Nellie Tayloe Ross, Politics, USSR, Wyoming

The Carter Family - Can't Feel at Home

An election special.

Kris Kristofferson - Vietnam Blues (1993)

Monday, July 29, 1974. Philadelphia Eleven and Alpha Group.

Episcopal Bishops Robert L. DeWitt, Bishop of Pennsylvania; Daniel Corrigan, Suffragan Bishop of Colorado; and Edward R. Welles II, the retired Bishop of West Missouri., ordained elevent female Episcopal deacons as priests, sparking a crisis in the Episcopal Church.  The acts were declared valid but irregular by the Episcopal Church.

The act was pioneering as the direction became that of the Episcopal Church and much, but not all, of the Anglican Communion thereafter.  It also had the result of causing it to be increasingly impossible for the overall Anglican Communion to reunite with the Catholic Church, which does not recognize the ordainment of women and of course which generally holds that Anglican holy orders are invalid, although there are exceptions we won't deal with here for individual priests and circumstances.  The validity of Anglican holy orders has been a major topic in the Anglican Communion.

It's worth noting that Christian churches in general were becoming increasingly liberal in the wake of the 1960s, although that wasn't universally true.  It was relatively noticeable in the Episcopal Church which had always been one of the most influential in the United States and one of the largest of the "mainline" Protestant churches. The Episcopal Church had been particularly associated with wealth and establishment in the US and remained so for much of the 20th Century, but starting at some point after this it began a dramatic decline and no longer holds the status it once did.   The Anglican Communion itself has globally been in a condition of strife as conservative elements, with a heavy African representation, have been opposed by developments such as this within it.

The mysterious Alpha Group within the KGB Special Forces was created by Yuri Andropov.

From Uncle Mike's:

July 29, 1974: The Death of "Mama" Cass Elliot

Last edition:

Saturday, July 27, 1974. Articles of Impeachment.

Labels: 1970s, 1974, 93d Congress, Angola, law, Mozambique, Portugal, Portuguese Empire, Rhodesia, Rhodesian Bush War, Richard Nixon, Watergate

"And I'm gonna tell you workers, 'fore you cash in your checks They say 'America First,' but they mean 'America Next!' "

I've been seeing some political signs around town that say "America First!"

Americans are, I'm afraid, notoriously dense about history, which doesn't keep Americans from citing it.  Just recently, for example, as I already noted here, the state's populist's caucus cited Operation Overlord as a great example of American virtue and heroism, apparently dim to the fact that Operation Overlord was made necessary by the US sitting out the post 1917 to 1941 world stage's drama and that the heroism was made necessary by the Japanese bombing Pearl Harbor, not the US waking up one day to the dangers of fascism.  Indeed, recently populist have been itching to repeat the betrayal of Czechoslovakia, in the form of Ukraine, so we can finally bring World War III about, although they are dim to the fact that's what they're doing.

Part of that late 1920s and 1930s drama that it seems people have forgotten (in addition to massive tariffs being a horrific idea, and that taxing upper income levels at the 50% rate actually doesn't hurt the economy at all) was the rise of the America First idea, which was that the US could just sit around and ignore the world, safely.  It turned out, of course, that ships going down daily in the Atlantic, numerous people being murdered due to their religion, and the Japanese fleet proved that concept wrong in a bloody fashion, but populists are imagining it again.  This time its pretty likely, I'd estimate in the 75% range, that the Chinese navy and ballistic missile force will prove that idea wrong again.

Anyhow, when I read "America First!" on political signs, having a sense of history, I can't help but recall this Woody Guthrie song:

While I suppose it's not directly applicable to the current times, I love the last line of the song:

And I'm gonna tell you workers, 'fore you cash in your checks

They say "America First, " but they mean "America Next!"

In Washington, Washington

In Memoriam. Melanie Safka, 1947-2024

Best remembered for Brand New Key, she was, in some ways, a slightly earlier, and somewhat less known, version of the same sort of singer than Linda Ronstadt would become, even preforming some of the same songs.

She performed at Woodstock, still so young that her mother went with her.

What Have They Done to My Song Ma is one I recall from my childhood for some reason, dimly recalling that my mother liked it.