Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 9. Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. It's Donald Trump's economy now.

 

July 4, 2025

The headline from the CST:

HOUSE GIVES FINAL OK TO TRUMP TAX BILL

And indeed it did, bowing to Trump's timing demands, and the current demands of a lifelong Democrat who became a Republican populist and destroyed conservatism, and particularly fiscal conservatism, in the GOP.

It balloons the debt and cuts services, while shoveling money to the Armed Forces and ICE.

It'll wipe out the medical care of millions, kill thousands, and cause a fiscal crisis unlike any faced by the country since the Great Depression which will, in turn, require a massive tax increase, at a bare minimum, to dig out of, if not things more drastic.  It likely belongs to Grover Norquist and the National Conservatives, rather than Trump.  Trump, a demented old man, will be dead before the consequences really set in.

The sub headline:

President says he will sign measure into law today; Democratic leader likens House to ‘crime scene’

And indeed it is.  It takes from the middle class and gives to the rich, and benefits the elderly (who get a tax break) to take from the young.

July 7, 2025

Employment Boom: Wyoming Unions Say Thousands Of Electricians Needed

The Trump far right is having a fit over Larry Summers' comments on This Week.  Summers criticized The Big Ugly and stated directly that it will lead to deaths so that the ultra rich can get tax breaks.

July 8, 2025

The on again, off again, on again, tariffs are back.

Supposedly all sorts of negotiations were going on, but now we're informed that most countries just get a form letter.   Countries receiving the silly missive are Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Kazakhstan, South Africa, Laos, Myanmar, Tunisia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Serbia, Cambodia and Thailand.

There's this:

Wyoming landed one of crypto’s biggest names. Here’s what that means for the state.: Country’s second-largest crypto exchange names Cheyenne its home base. Wyoming leaders believe their pursuit of digital assets is paying off.

Frankly, I wish Wyoming's leaders would back the crap out of crypto.  I can't really define it, but the entire thing sounds like a 1929 era pipedream combined with scams that will blow up in people's face.

And crypto isn't really Wyoming. 

July 10, 2025

A whole host of economic news.

a.  A penny for King Donny's mush brained thoughts.

Something really calculated to boost the price of everything.  King Donald is raising copper tariffs by 50%.  The US imports 50% of its copper.

On the plus side, King Donny recently had the government stop making something they actually weren't making, pennys.  The inevitable increase in the cost of copper might Make Penny's Great Again.

M'eh.

b.  Black sheep black sheep, have you any wool?

A local product advancing.

Knitting a future for Wyoming wool: Buffalo’s Mountain Meadow Wool operates the largest full-service wool mill in the West.

This is the sort of thing I've advocated for, for a long time.

The Pandemic and Food, Part Three. A Good, Affordable, Steak

Ranchers Form Co-Op to Address Meat Processing Bottleneck 

Lex Anteinternet: Issues In the Wyoming Election. A Series. Issue No. 1 (c). The Economy again. . . Agriculture 

The Wyoming Economy. Looking at it in a different way. 

Supply Chain Disruption and Other Economic Problems

This direction, rather than CyberQuackery, is what we really ought to look at.

c.  Socialism is bad unless it benefits you, in which case, it isn't socialism.

I continue to be amazed by how our Republicans in Congress are all against expenditure except where it means a healthy does of everyone else's cash being hurled at Wyoming.  

I'm not against the $5.4B coming here, but where's all the Freedom Caucus cries of "Socialism!"

Lummis Wants To Give Wyoming More Control Of Investing Its $5.4B Education Fund

M'eh.

c. Flog that dead horse harder.

The CSD poses a question, to which the answer is no.

Trump Opens Floodgate For Wyoming Coal, But Will Producers Buy New Leases?

Coal is on a long term decline, as we've discussed here before.

Coal in the ICU

Coal: Understanding the time line of an industry

Legislative efforts on this from the right recall the lyrics of 19th Nervous Breakdown.

When you were a child you were treated kind

But you were never brought up right

You were always spoiled with a thousand toys but still you cried all night

Your mother who neglected you owes a million dollars tax

And your father's still perfecting ways of making sealing wax

e.  Donnie cries for Bosonaro.

I don't know if Donnie cried for Evita, but he is for Bosnoaro and threatening to hurt the US and Brazilian economy unless Brazil does his bidding by stopping his prosecution.  He's going to hit Brazil with a 50% tax.

Bosonaro is also a right wing figure.

This is corruption on the part of the US, plain and simple.

f.  Deseret Lee gets a break?

While the would be Senator of Deseret Mike Lee was screaming that Federal lands all over the West should be sold for real estate developments, his actual home state saw a 36% decrease in births.

Well, the far right is rather pronatalist, so we can expect Lee to demand Western couples get busy.

g.  The law of unintended consequences and marriage.

A headline:

Tariffs hurt bridal industry due to reliance on overseas market

July 11, 2025

And now Donny's going to hit Canada, our largest trading partner, with a 35% tariff.

Brazil promised retaliatory tariffs if King Donny's helping tariff hand goes out to his fellow right wing figure in Brazil who is facing a trial, as Donny really should have.

The Secretary of State, whose job in Wyoming is to be a Secretary, is once again criticizing the Governor, whose job is to govern.

Gordon Defends Energy Platform; Gray Says Wind, Solar A ‘Woke Clown Show’

Gray clearly can't stay in his own lane, and is clearly running for something else.  Wyomingites are pretty sharply divided on him, with the far right seeing him as some sort of brilliant crusader, and many others seeing him as a self serving buffoon looking for the spotlight to shine on himself.

The State Department is making layoffs in order to cut bloat, even though nobody really knows what the right size of government actually is.  It's a philosophical knee jerk thing that any government is too much government, unless the government helps me personally or fits with my ideology.

July 13, 2025

30% tariffs on the EU and Mexico.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 8. The imaginary lost world edition (and also something about the color of pots and kettles).

Labels: Canada, Coal, Distributism, Economics, Electrical Power, inflation, John Kenneth Galbraith, Nostalgia, Petroleum, Socialism, Taxes, technology, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming (Cody), Wyoming's boom and bust economy

Where's the outrage?

Kristi Noem didn’t approve FEMA rescue teams for over 72 hours after the Texas floods, following a rule she imposed that required her personal sign-off on any operation over $100,000.

Was there not a Barbie dress up outfit for the occasion?

This was pretty clearly going to cost over $100,000.

When Bush II was President, there was outrage that he didn't go to Louisiana to view hurricane damage immediately.

The very same thing was true when Obama was President.

Joe Biden took flack for not reacting to floods in South Carolina instantly.

Is anyone demanding that King Don put his golf shoes on the ground in Texas?

Not that I think it would do anything.  I always thought the outcry about a President not going to to a disaster was absurd.  Noem, however, deserves criticism here.

So, frankly, does the State of Texas, which falls into the "don't tax me" camp, and therefore has inadequate warning systems.

You do get what you pay for, and lack of payment can be tragically lethal.  That sort of tragedy is going to be increasing during the Trump era, and for quite some time thereafter.

For the meantime, MAGA's should be howling.  Shouldn't they expect the same level of direct involvement that Bush and Obama had?

And for Federal help. . . Wyoming delegation. . . what are you going to do to help us. . . it's fire season.

I have a deep suspicion that a lot of people who back really libertarian firearm's laws as politicians. . .

have probably never shot a .22, or anything else.

I really do.

Mind you, I'm pro 2nd Amendment myself, but at the same time I don't think you need to pack heat into schools or on college campuses.

And I really truly suspect that at least a few politicians who really carry blazing torches on this, probably have no interest in the topic whatsoever, and even less than that.  

Indeed, while I may be very off, I can think of one pro gun politician whom I bet hasn't even fired a BB gun, let alone a real firearms.

World War Two Daisy advertisement, a really interesting example of rebranding for the times.

Truth be known, you suspect this too. . . 

Thursday, March 24, 1825. State Colonization Law of March 24, 1825.

The Mexican legislature passed the State Colonization Law of March 24, 1825, allowing immigrants to take up agricultural lands in Texas for a nominal fee, provided that they took oath promising to abide by the federal and state constitutions, to worshiped according to the Catholic faith, and to display sound moral principles and good conduct. 

Immigrants arrived, but they were largely Protestant (Southern) Americans, violated Mexican slavery laws, and demonstrated very little loyalty to Mexico.

Perhaps they should be deported.

There are a lot of lessons in this story.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 19, 1825. Fort Vancouver opens.

Labels: 1820s, 1825, Hudson's Bay Company, The Frontier West, Washington

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 66th Edition. A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer up your pants.*

Strange bedfellows.

Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows.

New Senate Whip John Barrasso with President Elect Donald Trump and President John F. Kennedy with his nephew Robert F. Kennedy Jr.

Politics is, we also know, the art of compromise, but to what extent is a politician to blame for compromising with the truth?

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has been chosen by Donald Trump to be the new head of Health and Human Services.

He is, frankly, a nutter on health topics, who shouldn't be allowed anywhere near such a post.

John Barrasso is, by training, an orthopedic surgeon.

I've long suspected, well I'm pretty much certain, that Dr. Barrasso doesn't actually believe even half of what he's saying..He's doing it to 1) keep his Senatorial seat; and 2) advance himself in the Senate, even though at his age he could easily retire and be done with it.

Without getting too deep into it, I also believe that once you start compromising on fundamental things, you keep doing it, including with the truth.  You don't start off deep into it, but you end up there.

Dr. Barrasso was known, at one time, as "Wyoming's Doctor" and had spots on local television with health minutes, and hosted the Labor Day Marathon.  He continued to do this after he became Senator, a spot he was appointed to by the legislature to fill a vacancy before he was elected.

I've met him, as a physician, but can't claim to know him.  I've been with him on commercial aircraft numerous times.  I've always left him alone, as I figure that while traveling, people don't like to be bothered.  I don't.  Not everyone was like that, however, and I'd see people who recognized him treat him sort of like fans treated Elvis Presley.

Dr. Barrasso is originally from Pennsylvania.  With a solid Italian American parentage, and an early Catholic education, I'd guess, but don't know, that he was a Catholic up until some point.  He list himself as a Presbyterian now, and has been divorced, and later remarried.  He's in his early 70s.  Early on, his positions were clearly moderate Republican, but starting at least as early as 2016 they began to rapidly head towards Trumpism.  He had a right wing challenger in the GOP primary last go around, and while I think the chances of him every losing were small, he went hardcore to the right.

Now he's the whip.  Trump is going to expect him to whip up support for Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.  Robert F. Kennedy, Jr, holds some of the nuttiest ideas on healthcare, and particularly vaccines, imaginable.  He shouldn't be anywhere near the Department of Health and Human Services.

Will Barrasso choke those down and support them.

Again, people don't get to supporting anything overnight.  Some do rapidly, some over decades.

RFK, Jr. has no business in this office.

Kennedys

Before moving on, hasn't the country had enough of the Kennedys?  

I certainly have.

The over tattooed and expropriation.

Trump's nominee for Secretary of Defense, Pete Hegseth, is taking a lot of flak.  Some of it is for things he's said or believes

Some of it for his tattoos, which are interpreted to mean things which they might not.

One of those tattoos is of a Jerusalem Cross.

The Jerusalem cross consists of a large cross potent surrounded by four smaller Greek crosses representing the spread of the gospel to the four corners of the earth.  It was used as the emblem and coat of arms of the Kingdom of Jerusalem after 1099.

Hegeth is a member of a church which is part of the Communion of Reformed Evangelical Churches.  Therefore, he's appropriating a Catholic symbol, while he's not a Catholic.  Indeed, he's not even close, as he's on his third spouse, something no adherent Catholic would have done.

He also has a tattoo on a bicep that states Deus vult, "God wills", a phrase that dates back to the First Crusade, but which has been appropriated by many groups over the years.   And it doesn't stop there.

“Israel, Christianity and my faith are things I care deeply about,” he's stated.

Perhaps he should learn more about the faith espoused by the symbols that he's had inked on himself.  Indeed, quite frankly, the men who cried Deus vult in the 11th Century and those who fought to defend the Kingdom of Jerusalem would have regarded him as a heretic. 

Anyhow,  one thing that I've worried about since the rise of Christian Nationalist is that Catholics are the ones who are going to take a beating in the end, even though its really a Protestant movement.  I can already see it starting to happen.  Former Senator Adam Kinzinger, who comments heavily on Blue Sky and Twitter, had a post noting that "the Crusades weren't Christian".  Oh yes they were, the thing they weren't is the edited version that English Protestants came up with to attempt to tar and feather the Church.  Others have been running around claiming that the Jerusalem Cross, which Catholics use a lot, is a Nazi symbol, which it isn't, or a camouflaged swastika, which it isn't.

The United States remains a Protestant nation, including in the way it reacts to symbols and in its misunderstanding of history.

All this serves, I'd note, to bury a deeper item that should be of actual concern, which is the American Evangelical view towards Israel.  This is not universal, by any means, but there's a branch of American Evangelicalism which sees itself as having a direct role in bringing about the Second Coming through its interaction with Israel.  According to somebody who knew him and commented on it recently (therefore at least making it somewhat suspect) former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who has been nominated by Trump to be Ambassador to Israel, and who is a Baptist minister, has those views.

Really, people with the apparent views of Huckabee and Kinzinger really have no business in the offices they've been nominated to serve in.

Hairless wonders.

This is sort of an odd aside, but the huge increase in male tattoos, including chest tattoos, has caused me to wonder, has there been a reduction in male chest hair in recent years?

Chest hair is a secondary male characteristic which is caused by a variety of genetic factors.  One of those is a high testosterone level, and for that reason, hairy chests have gone, at any one time, from being regarded as "brutish" to sexy.  Because of the conditions of the Second World War, Americans were acclimated for a time to seeing men shirtless, which was unusual, and for a good several decades after the war, hairy chested men, or just flat out hairy men in general, were in vogue.  Indeed I can recall seeing some 1960s vintage war movie with Fabian in it which was ridiculously hairy.

This is clearly really out now, but it still raises the question, what's going on.  Personally, I couldn't have a giant chest tattoo like Hegseth for the same reason that Tom Selleck couldn't.  I doubt that I really could have a tattoo anywhere safe for the the generally non visible part of my arms either.

It's interesting to note that there has been a substantial reduction in detected testosterone levels in the US since the 1980s.**

Maybe RFK, Jr. can look into that.

Creeps

It's a real irony that the man so many Christian Evangelicals saw as the Christian candidate has such a horrible personal tract record at least in the sexual ethics category, but perhaps that fact should cause us to be less than surprised that he nominated Matt Gaetz to be Attorney General of the United States.

There seem to be no doubt that Gaetz dabbled down in this category to a 17 year old.  Yes, he wasn't prosecuted, but he may have had a credible defense based on scienter.  According to at least one report, once he learned she was 17, he abstained from her favors until she was 18.

The thing here, however, is that this conduct is completely immoral.  Not only is it sex outside of marriage, which Christianity, but Gaetz is a creep who is fishing in the bottom of the well.  Frankly, this deserves further investigation as most 17 year olds or 18 year olds would have had no interest in Gaetz, so something should be done to figure out why they did and what's behind that.

This guy has no significant legal experience and shouldn't be anywhere near the AG's office.

Scenes from the American dumpster fire.

Strange bedfellows indeed.

At this point, however, if Matt Gaetz invited Mike Johnson over to the Playboy Grotto, if it still existed, I'd expect him to go.

Something about this photo just shows how trashy American culture has become.

Trashy.

I think there is sort of a faction in the Republican Party that has a strange kind of... sort of homoerotic fascination for Putin.

Boris Johnson recently stated this.

The fascination for Putin (who has a hairless chest, I'd note) is pretty weird.

Trad Rant

The recent election seems to have bubbled some stuff up from the bottom of the cultural dutch oven, and not just stuff like the weird things noted in the two above entries. Some of this is interesting to ponder, including pondering whether its a serious trend or something else.

One of them is the emergence of secular (and religious) trad women, holding a romantic, it seems, view of the not so distant path.

Here's an example.  Interesting trad rant starting at 21:00.

Interesting trad rant starting at 21:00.

This topic has come up here before, and the same way, more or less. The video clip above was cut down as a TikTok clip and reposted on Twitter, where it went viral.  Just the part where the young female Republican Trumpite starts the rant linked above.  We posted on this topic before, where a young woman, who was not aspiring to be a Hallmark farm wife, was having an absolute meltdown about having to work.

It's easy to dismiss this stuff, but there's something to it, which as noted, I've dove into before.  What's bizarre, maybe, is there somewhat to be some sort of minor movement.  Witness, in photos lifted from Twitter, although if I did it right, you can jump right to their Twitter feed.

I don't want to go to far in criticizing this, really, as it has a real appeal, as does a lot of sort of agrarian conservatism and Chesteronian distributism I see creeping into the culture, sort of sideways.  These people are sincere, and there's a real appeal to it.  Shoot, I'd live an agrarian life if people around me would allow it, or so I tell myself.

Others tell themselves that too, and also mock themselves, as for example, here:

Carpathian shepherdess.

Well, enough of all of that.

Footnotes:

*“A Little Song, a Little Dance, a Little Seltzer Down Your Pants”

**That may actually be due to the overall increase in the median age, as testosterone levels decline, normally, in males as they age.

Related Threads:

Women at work. "Whoever fought, for women to get jobs. . . . why?. . . . why did you do that?" Looking at women (and men) in the workplace, and modern work itself, with a long lens.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 65th Edition. Toilet Paper Day, Swedish immigration and emigration, Wyoming trending on Twitter.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2024 Election, Daily Living, Disaster, emigration, Immigration, law, Sweden, The Wyoming Fires of 2024, Twitter, Wyoming, Zeitgeist

Donald Trump on Presidents under indictment.

She shouldn’t be allowed to run...If she wins, it would create an unprecedented constitutional crisis. In that situation, we could very well have a sitting president under felony indictment and, ultimately, a criminal trial. It would grind government to a halt.

Donald Trump regarding Hillary Clinton in 2016.

This was an attempt, apparently not successfully given the comment, to point out a bit of hypocrisy on Trump's part.  If he followed his own advice, he'd drop out of the race.

Belligerant ironies.

On the weekend shows, Republicans, who are the party with members that would abandon Ukraine to the tender mercies of the Russians, are irate that the Biden Administration is withholding some munitions from Israel, and asking Israel not to go into Rafah.

Eh?

And Trump is making it clear that he'll support Israel even more than Biden is, which makes the protests here and there over the current administration's policies even stranger.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 63d Edition. Strange Bedfellows.

 

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

The environmental populists?

Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows.  But how strange, nonetheless still surprises.

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who rose to that position by pitching to the populist far right, which dominates the politics of the GOP right now, and which appears to be on the verge of bringing the party down nationally, has tacked in the wind in a very surprising direction.  He appeared this past week at a meeting in Natrona County to oppose a proposed gravel pit project at the foot of Casper Mountain.  He actually pitched for the upset residents in the area to mobilize and take their fight to Cheyenne, stating:

We have a very delicate ecosystem, the fragility up there, the fragility of the flows … the proximity to domestic water uses. All of those things should have led to a distinct treatment by the Office of State Lands, and that did not happen.

I am, frankly, stunned.  

I frankly never really expected Mr. Gray to darken visage of the Pole Stripper monument on the east side of Casper's gateway, which you pass by on the road in from Cheyenne again, as he's not from here and doesn't really have a very strong connection to the state, although in fairness that connection would have been to Casper, where he was employed by his father's radio station and where he apparently spent the summers growing up (in an unhappy state of mind, according to one interview of somebody who knew him then).  Gray pretty obviously always had a political career in mind and campaigned from the hard populist right from day one, attempting at first to displace a conservative house member unsuccessfully.

We have a post coming up which deals with the nature of populism, and how it in fact isn't conservatism.  Gray was part of the populist rise in the GOP, even though his background would more naturally have put him in the conservative camp, not the populist one.  But opportunity was found with populists, who now control the GOP state organization.  The hallmark of populism, as we'll explore elsewhere, is a belief in the "wisdom of the people", which is its major failing, and why it tends to be heavily anti-scientific and very strongly vested in occupations that people are used to, but which are undergoing massive stress.  In Wyoming that's expressed itself with a diehard attitude that nothing is going on with the climate and that fossil fuels will be, must have, and are going to dominate the state's economy forever.   The months leading up to the recent legislative session, and the legislative session itself, demonstrated this with Governor Gordon taking criticism for supporting anything to address carbon concerns.  Put fairly bluntly, because a large percentage of Wyoming's rank and file workers depend on the oil and gas industry, and things related to it, any questioning on anything tends to be taken as an attack on "the people".

Natrona County has had a gravel supply problem for quite a while and what the potential miner seeks to do here is basically, through the way our economy works, address it.  There would be every reason to suspect that all of the state's politicians who ran to the far right would support this, and strongly.  But they aren't.

The fact that Gray is not, and is citing environmental concerns, comes as a huge surprise.  But as noted, given his background, he's probably considerably more conservative than populist, but has acted as politicians do, and taken aid and comfort where it was offered.  Tara Nethercott ran as a conservative and lost for the same office.

But here's the thing.

That gravel is exactly the sort of thing that populists, if they're true to what they maintain they stand for, ought to support.  It's good for industry, and the only reason to oppose the mining is that 1) it's in a bad place in terms of the neighbors and 2) legitimate environmental concerns, if there are any.  But that's exactly the point.  You really can't demand that the old ways carry on, until they're in your backyard.  

Truth be known, given their nature, a lot of big environmental concerns are in everyone's backyard right now.

The old GOP would have recognized that nationally, and wouldn't be spending all sorts of time back in DC complaining about electric vehicles.  And if people are comfortable with things being destructive elsewhere, they ought to be comfortable with them being destructive right here.  If we aren't, we ought to be pretty careful about it everywhere.

There actually is some precedent for this, FWIW.  A hallmark of Appalachian populism was the lamenting of what had happened to their region due to coal mining.  John Prine's "Paradise" in some ways could be an environmental populist anthem.

Hard to feel sorry.

Far right goofball Candace Owens was fired from the Daily Wire. She stated that she "cannot be silenced", but frankly the gadfly has gone from sort of being a token black populist to a has been already.

That no doubt sounds extremely harsh, but frankly it's true. Owens went from being sort of a snarky populist commenter to writing some real wack job stuff, at which time her popularity dropped off.  Part of her popularity was because she was black, and we don't think of populists being African American, although some are.  Once again, black conservatives and black populists are not the same thing.  Her status as a rare black populist, and a highly attractive woman at that, didn't hurt in her getting attention. 

I don't know what her fan base is, but this is all a sort of tragedy.  Always abrasive and controversial, her early commentary was not completely without merit.  She's really dropped off in the recent year or years and probably won't really revive.  She's sort of like Tucker Carlson that way, being a person of obvious high intelligence who really went down a rabbit hole.  Carlson looked like a complete fool with his recent trip to Russia. We hope that Owens has a legitimate conservative revival, or at least isn't touring North Korea to get a one up on Carlson.

The Dead Elephants.

There was an Irish street gang in New York at one time that bore the name The Dead Rabbits.  The House GOP is rapidly becoming The Dead Elephants.

Something is really going on.

Filled with disgust, some Republicans in the House are abandoning the House well before their terms are up. In doing that, they're setting themselves free from something. That something might just be failure, but at this rate, it suggests something else.  They almost seem set on sabotaging their party, except their party isn't a party.

In 1944 when it became obvious to those who cared to see, and many simply did not, that Germany was going down in defeat, not only did conservative German army officers but a few, albeit very few, members of the SS began to plot against him.  It's notable that the cover the July 20 bombing was given was that it was an attempted assassination by the SS.  At least one member of the SS was actually part of the plot, and the head of the Berlin police was far from a liberal democrat.  Right at the end of the war Himmler was conspiring against Hitler and notably didn't take a place among the suicides at the bunker.

The point is that when people who have been part of a movement begin bailing out, they sense defeat and don't want to be associated with it.

An added point is that with Donald Trump the effective Speaker of the House, and Marjorie Taylor Green acting as the Howler Monkey Sergeant at Arms, Trump's destructiveness has reached a new level.  Republicans lost the Oval Office in 2020 and the Senate in 2022.  Their House representation declined to perilous levels in the same time period. They were supposed to do well throughout it.  Now, not only is Trump causing the GOP to lose at the ballot box, he's causing Republicans to abandon their posts. 

In only one more Republicans leaves, the House will be deadlocked and Mike Johnson out the door.  If two leave, the Democrats are in control.  There will be replacements, but there's no guarantee that they'll be Republicans.

The Conservatives v. The Populists

While, once again, we'll have more on this later, we'll note here that the primary race in the state this year is really shaping up to be a fight between two parties, the Conservatives and the Populists, all of whom register as Republicans.  

Some Conservatives have registered to try to displace Populists, and some Populists are doing the same in regard to Conservatives.  Of note, the importation of out of state Populists is becoming really obvious, that having been a barely noticed aspect of it until very recently.

Populists are going to be howling that their Republican contenders are "RINO"s in short order, when in fact it's really the other way around, and the Populists are a sort of Neo Dixiecrat.  Republicans are late in rising to their challenge, but they are doing it.  

The primary may be quite interesting.

Last prior edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 62nd Edition. The trowel and musket edition.

Apostolic Christianity, Catholic, Donald Trump, Education, homosexuality, Israeli Hamas War, law, Mormon, Pope Francis, religion, Sex, theology, Zeitgeist

Lex Anteinternet: Pride and Unintended Consequences and the really unknowable views of Donald Trump.

So, yesterday, we ran this:

Lex Anteinternet: Pride and Unintended Consequences.: Yesterday, I ran this item, which noted the following: Lex Anteinternet: On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compellin... :  All of thi...

Which included this:

Wyoming Lawmaker Calls For Boycott Of Businesses That Sponsored Casper Pride Fest

Discussing how Casper House member Jeanette Ward proposes to boycott businesses that supported the Pride event in Casper.

Today we read that former President Donald Trump has opened up the door to the "Miss Universe" contest to "trans women".  Setting aside the entire trans debate, and focusing only on political stances and boycotts, does the far right, or at least those who have endorsed Ward's approach, now boycott Donald Trump?

To not do so would be, of course, hypocrisy.

So, will Robert Reich, or Bernie Saunders, or the other "Progressives". . .

 who see infanticide on demand as a right now give the pharmaceutical industry, which before they saw as greedy, the thumbs up?

Drug Company Leaders Condemn Ruling Invalidating F.D.A.’s Approval of Abortion Pill

If not, why not?  To do otherwise would be at least a little hypocritical.

Of course, no more than being a member of an ethnicity for which mass extermination was advocated, while advocating mass extermination.

Or for advocating for democracy, while opposing it.

Hard words, I know.

But advocating for life, no matter how inconvenient, involves that.

A Modern Plague

 

American Solidarity Party 

@AmSolidarity

MindGeek, the parent company behind several of the world's biggest porn sites, was just acquired by a private equity firm called Ethical Capital Partners. We'll let you guys draw your own conclusions from this one.