CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 147th Edition. Have we reached an "Is Paris burning?" moment?

Is Paris Burning?

Something remarkable happened last week.  Charges were dismissed against a former Olympian for vandalizing the reflecting pool. Anyone who looked at the story knew the charges were false.  Indeed, they were so patently false that anyone who sincerely believed them would have to be regarded as a dim besotted delusional

The really remarkable thing, however, is that the dismissal document basically admitted that.  It pegged the source of the reflecting pool problem as what it is, a bad Rhino Lining job.  That's stunning.

And what's more stunning is that, after a couple of days, Trump was complaining about the charges being dismissed.

That might mean we've reached an "Is Paris burning?" moment.

On August 1, 1944 Dietrich Hugo Hermann von Choltitz was appointed as the military Governor of Paris.¹  The appointment came two months after the Allies had landed at Normandy and mere days before the Allies landed in Southern France.  Already it was obvious to astute German commanders and the gig was up.  Indeed, just two weeks prior some of them had attempted to blow Hitler off the face of the Earth so that they could affect a coup and work towards a negotiated settlement of the war.

On the same day, August 15, that the Allies landed in southern France, the French police in Paris went on strike.  On August 19 the city erupted in a general insurrection.  On August 23 Hitler ordered that the city be completely destroyed before it fell into Allied hands.

Von Choltitz didn't do it.

In fact, he stayed in Paris and surrendered.

Dietrich von Choltitz with Philippe Leclerc de Hauteclocque and Jacques Soustelle in the M3 Scout Car after the fall of Paris.

How is this relevant to our current situation?

Well, Von Cholitz had been a loyal commander up to that point.  But he did know right from wrong.   And he was clear eyed.  He could see the Allies would win.  He could see that there'd just been an open attempt to overthrow the government.  He chose to openly disobey his orders rather than perform them, which is why Parish was spared destruction.

This appears in a way to be what just happened.

A couple of weeks ago a Trump cabinet official admitted, for the first time in a television interview, that Joe Biden won the 2020 election (he hasn't been seen, to my knowledge, on television since). That was a direct attack on the foundational myth of the Trump interregnum.  Basically, it was an explosive device placed in Der Fibber's aircraft that failed to go off, or perhaps that figures throwing a lifeline out to reality as he can read the handwriting on the wall.  The act of the Justice Department's lawyers, however, was an outright "we don't care what outrageous lie Trump told we're not doing it" moment. It was outright rebellion.

And Trump's reaction to it has been anemic, or as he likes to say, low energy.  He's complained about it like a toddler.

While this is going on, the Senate has made it fairly clear that they won't confirm Todd Blanche if there's any risk of the Trump judicial slush fund going forward, and some are making it clear they just won't do it.  Of course Wyoming's Senators, the outgoing Cynthia Cyberbucks Lummis and John Stern Look, Lim Noodle Barrasso are supporting Trump.  They can be planned on supporting Der Fibber right up until its not politically convenient to do so, at which point they'll reveal that they never loved him.  Be that as it may, Harriet Hageman has shoved Trump out of the pickup in order to vote against the appropriations bill with the SAVE Act in it, even though Trump endorsed her. She might not have to fear Trump endorsing anyone else, although a late in the day switch to John Holtz might be amusing (it won't occur).

Suddenly, rather obviously, disobeying Trump is really setting in.  The bloom must be off the rose and the stinkweeds starting to set in.

Die Alter Kämpfer

A big event in Nazi Germany, for Nazis, was the annual November 8 gathering in which they celebrated the failed Beer Hall Putsch.  The last time Hitler attended was November 8, 1943. After that, the war just was going too badly.

Stalingrad had been retaken by the Red Army in February.

The purpose of the annual gathering was like any nostalgic event, even though it celebrated events that weren't really all that far in the past.  Hitler's speech on that occasion was fiery.  He'd never be back. Nazi Germany's end was approaching pretty quickly, even if at that point the public didn't realize it. Some in the German military already did, however, and were actively looking for a way to put an end to the regime.

This past week Trump's Alter Kämpfer in Congress, now a diminished set, gathered in true Nazi style to berate Dr. Anthony Fauci.  Many outsiders have been baffled.  They should not have been.  The Nazis have gathered to relish their past and to remind themselves of their hatred of the Jews, or, in contemporary terms, to gathering around one of their great myths, COVID was a fib and Anthony Fauci is a monster.  

The public large reacted with, eh?

Frankly, Rand Paul shot the last bolt of credibility he had left, having gained some during the descent of Thomas Massie, who dared to take on the Epstein files.  Now that's gone. But he's not the only one.

Still, you can see the Alter Kämpfer rally one last time around around the Blutfahne.  In spite of it all, the seas of dead, see they were right all along. . . except they weren't.  But that hasn't stopped such figures as Ken Pendergraft from coming out, in his case, to say see, we weren't "knuckleheads". 

No, you were anti scientific ignoramuses and we all know it.

This same spirit is part of the reason that all of a sudden Reichsgesundheitsführer Kennedy has been fully released.  Kennedy is a complete nutcase and a quack.  For the most part, the Administration has kept him under a lid so he couldn't be too destructive.  But now, like Stephen Miller, he's been loosed as there's nothing left to lose and maybe the deluded can be deluded again.

Kennedy is back out there unleashed making statements against vaccinations.  Over the weekend he said that Lyme disease and  came from gain-of-function research, stating:

Lyme disease almost certainly came from these experiments and is now devastating our country.

That's idiotic.

The 5,300 mummified body of Ötzi the Iceman contained the bacteria that causes Lymes disease.  Genomic tracking can trace the disease back 60,000 years.

Genetic tracking of RSV shows a common ancestor between human RSV and bovine respiratory syncytial virus (BRSV) to have existed 921 years ago.  338 years ago is the point at which human RSV-A and RSV-B split from their shared ancestor.  That would  make it a newish disease, compared to Lymes anyhow, but it's not a result of "gain of function research".  It's a result of agriculture.

Das Ende

As we progress towards the fall election, and on into next year, we can look for these trends to accelerate.   Der Fibber, just like Der Fuhrer, has an accelerating mental health collapse. That is making him more and more erratic.  His policies are failing and he will lash out as they continue to fail.  A war he was supposed to easily win is being handily lost and dragging on.  Heads will roll.

But disloyalty will now increase. Already some out in the field are openly disobeying Der Fibber and no longer working towards Der Fuhrer.  At the end, in 1945, even Himmler was looking for a way to betray Hitler and cut a deal of his own.  We can bet that Vance and Rubio contemplate such a means out every day, and probably every hour of every day.  Traditionally, in a lame duck term, cabinet ministers begin to flee as soon as the midterm results are in.  In this administration, that will happen in spakes as people hoping for a political or administrative future look for a way to surrender, and to distance themselves (with tell all books) from Trump.

The true believes, of course, people like Stephen Miller, will remain, and their influence will accordingly grow.  The next two and half years are going to be chaos.

January to May 1945 were the bloodiest months of the war in Europe.

Fußnoten

1.  I've generally tried to avoid comparing the Trumpites and Trump's administration to the Nazis, but frankly it's impossible not to do so now. 

I had originally avoided calling the administration fascist, but it is.  It has all the classic features of fascism and it's perfectly comparable to fascism in early fascist Italy while democracy was still liming along a bit. That's right where we are at. The question is whether we descend further into it, or pull out. Right now, it looks like we might actually be able to pull out.

It's often debated if Nazism is fascism or sui generis.  It certainly has fascist elements at a large scale.  What really distinguishes it is the degree that Nazism was autarkic where as fascism favored state capitalism.  Strong elements of both are present in the Trump administration's economic policies.

The other defining characteristic of Nazism that was lacking in fascism was the absolute racial hatred that was a feature of Nazism.  Both it and fascism are extremely nationalistic, but fascism doesn't really feature racial hatred to anywhere near the same degree as Nazism.  Racial hatred has been an increasing element of Trumpism as time has gone by and it has members who outright advocate for making the United States a white Protestant nation.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist 146th Edition. What does the SAVE Act, Groypers, A coup in progress, Dominionism, Women staying barefoot and pregnant, and the Lumpenproletariat have in common? A movement, it's leaders, and it's really dim backers.

Labels: 2020s, 2026, 2026 Election, American Puritanism, Democracy, Harriet Hageman, Immigration, law, Lies, Mike Johnson, Republican Party, The roles of men and women, The Second Trump Administration, Women, Zeitgeist

‘It’s terrifying.’ Wyoming leads country with highest jump in Obamacare costs

‘It’s terrifying.’ Wyoming leads country with highest jump in Obamacare costs: For a 60-year-old Wyoming resident earning $63K a year, the average monthly ACA premium costs are increasing by 421%.

Truly an example, for Wyoming, of play stupid games, win stupid prizes, which we're seeing a lot of now days.  Chaining ourselves to the far right is proving to be a huge mistake in nearly everything.

Republicans have been opposed to the Affordable Health Care Act from the very beginning, but have failed to repeal it, and have failed to offer any alternatives to it.  The act itself definitely has flaws, but ironically the flaws that exist are due to ongoing right wing opposition to national health care, which every other advanced nation has.

The credit system that the AFHA currently has came in during the Covid pandemic, and because of it, given that so many people were out of work.  Removing them will cause a massive jump in insurance rates.  None of this is a surprise to people who have looked at it, and frankly I suspect its a backdoor path to Republicans removing the system on the basis that it's too expensive and hence a failure.

It might also prove to be the straw that breaks the back of resistance to national health care.  Thousand will not be able to afford insurance and it'll be a health crisis.  Populists on the right will receive the blame for it while those on the left, like Sanders and Ocasio-Cortez will pick it up, arguing for a national system.  The political winds are already turning against the Republicans and this will make it worse for them.

Because of the cost of healthcare, this is an area where the principals of subsidiarity, as well as the principal of solidarity, really call for a basic national system, which shouldn't be all that hard to create. Such a system would cover basic health care.  Elective matters of a non life threatening nature it wouldn't.  And it wouldn't cover the "medical" items in the culture wars either, such as abortion  

Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell Statement on COVID-19 Return to Service

 Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell Statement on COVID-19 Return to Service

April 7, 2025

Chief Pentagon Spokesman Sean Parnell provided the following statement:

We're committed to doing right by those who were affected by the Department's former COVID-19 vaccination policy. For the roughly 8,700 service members who were separated solely for refusing the vaccine, this is an opportunity to return to service — and we want them to know the door is open.

Starting today, the Department will begin outreach to ensure each of these individuals receives clear information on how to pursue reinstatement.

They have until February 7, 2026, to pursue reinstatement, and we're working hard to make sure each of them receives clear information and support throughout the process.

Their service mattered then, and it still matters now.

We're ready to welcome them back!

Of course, in the anti science era, they'd be welcomed back.

They shouldn't be.

Blog Mirror: The 2 key facts about US Covid policy that everyone should know

 

The 2 key facts about US Covid policy that everyone should know

Go ahead, living on pie and whiskey won't hurt you. . . .

Sen. John Barrasso@SenJohnBarrasso

Democrats’ runaway spending continues to fuel today’s high prices. 

@POTUS & Democrats refuse to cut spending even though the nation has blown past its limit. Families are worn out by Washington Democrats’ nonstop spending & worried about making ends meet.

barrasso.senate.gov

Barrasso: Democrats Refuse to Cut Spending Even Though the Nation Has Blown Past Its Limit

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, today issued the following statement after the April 2023 Consumer Price Index (CPI) revealed...

10:23 AM · May 10, 2023

A few observations. 

1.  The U.S. didn't have a budget deficit in 1835.

1835. That's it.

It had built up debt to pay down, but it didn't have a budget deficit, for that one year only.

This means "the Democrats did it" is devoid of historical accuracy.

2.  The recent massive public debt really began to ramp up during Gulf War II, which we fought on borrowed money.

The President who started that was a Republican. The President who finished it was a Democrat.

So again, "the Democrats did it" is, well, not really true.

3. The huge recent ramp up started during Donald Trump's administration, and continued on in the current one.

This got rolling in part due to COVID, but during the Trump Administration there was no loyalty to the "no debt" line of the GOP whatsoever.  

John Barrasso was there the entire time.

Joe Biden's early spending plans would have made it much worse, but Congress did partially reign that in.

By the way, we ramped up a huge one during the Cold War too, and the government basically inflated its way out of it.  I can't say that was intentional, but that is what occurred.

4.  Spending cuts?

Yes, they are needed, but cut all the non-discretionary spending but for defense to the bone, or just flat out, out, and this isn't actually fixed.

We are in a time of peril, but some of our defense spending remains stupid. We just launched, for example, a littoral combat ship of a class we're getting rid of.

At any rate, to really address spending, you need to touch entitlements, or raise taxes, or both.  Any politician who has examined this must know this, or be willfully blind to it.

5. Fuel prices?

In case nobody has noticed, one of the globes largest petroleum producers has attacked one of the world's largest grain producers.

Wars have impacts like huge boulder thrown in small ponds.  The Russo Ukrainian War has resulted in a massive disruption of Russian petroleum on the market and Ukrainian grain on the market.

Massive.

And every day, a massive amount of fuel is consumed in the war.

D'uh.

There should really be consequences for telling what amounts to half-truths, let alone untruths, to the public. But that would depend on the public being willing to listen to what it does not wish to hear.  In Wyoming, we wish to hear that 1) we can have high prices at the wellhead, and 2) high wages in extractive industries; and 3) free fuel at the pump.  Nobody wants to hear that we can't have those three. And no politician is really willing to admit it.

So, we suffer the consequences of our unwillingness not to hear that we can't have pie and whiskey for dinner, and be just fine.

But it will.

It'll kill you.

Sick Call.

 

Honesty and suffering Wyoming.

I should note here that I'm cynical about politicians and politics once a person leaves the local realm.

Now, I don't feel that way about politicians at the local level.  The ones I've known personally were genuinely engaged and had entered into politics as they had real concerns about their communities, or schools, etc.

And, of the few state legislators I've known, most fit that same description.

Theodore Roosevelt, long before he ever ran for the Oval Office, once rebuked a reporter for suggesting that he might some day occupy it.  In doing so, he stated that a person must never tell a politician, which he already was, being in the New York Assembly, that he might some day be President as he'd quit being his natural self and alter positions so that he could obtain that goal.  

There's really something to that.

Harriet Hageman is in the category of politicians I've met and sort of once somewhat knew.  

During the recent race, I was frankly shocked by a lot of her conduct, which I at first attributed to her simply wanting to be in Congress. Since that time, I've come to wonder if in fact she may believe the positions she's taking, in which case that's scarier yet.  That would likely mean that of our three person Congressional delegation, she's the only true ideologue, and not in a good way.

Back in April, Harriet Hageman spoke in Powell and made this statement:

I’ve really got a dog in this hunt, I’m from Wyoming. My family’s from Wyoming … Wyoming is my passion. The way that I put it is that when Wyoming prospers, my family prospers. But when Wyoming suffers, my family suffers.¹

That's the very first thing I've seen attributed to Hageman which would give a person a reason to vote for her.  That same reasoning applied to the primary candidates who ran against Cheney when she first ran, and won, which of course means that a lot of the people who might find this view appealing now, apparently weren't all that worked up about it back when, including Hageman who at one time supported Cheney.  None of which means that it isn't a good point.

Mind you, there are a lot of reasons not to have voted for Hageman, although most Wyoming voters who participated in the off year election did. The big reason for that is that most Wyoming voters bought the Trump lie that didn't sell nationwide this election, that the election was stolen.  

Wyoming's voters, frankly, have been buying a lot of cheap fibs and obfuscations in recent years, so perhaps we shouldn't be too surprised.

So we should hope that Hageman really means what she says, and that she remains capable, as an attorney should be, of analyzing the facts.  Given her age and status, she won't be personally culpable for failing to do so.  I.e, if what she has been selling turns out to be a bill of goods, well she'll go on to retire and not bear the brunt of it.

Hageman says she has a dog in the "hunt" as she's from here and her family is too.  And she is from the Ft. Laramie region and her family is here, in agriculture, although unlike those of us who have kids who to worry about for the future decades hence, she has no children, so that's really worrying about her extended family.  I have no reason to believe that she doesn't genually bear them in her heart.

In any event, however, worrying about what happens when Wyoming suffers means, more than anything else, looking at the world honestly, and not at some romanticized past that never existed and which, to the extent it did, is evolving.

In 1960 Harold Macmillan, the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, addressed the reality of the state of British colonialism to the South African parliament, stating:

The wind of change is blowing through this continent and, whether we like it or not, this growth of national consciousness is a political fact. We must all accept it as a fact, and our national policies must take account of it. 

Macmillan was right, and there was no holding back the change those winds brought.  But he had a concern beyond that, and stated:

As I see it, the great issue in this second half of the twentieth century is whether the uncommitted peoples of Asia and Africa will swing to the East or to the West. Will they be drawn into the Communist camp? Or will the great experiments of self-government that are now being made in Asia and Africa, especially within the Commonwealth, prove so successful, and by their example so compelling, that the balance will come down in favour of freedom and order and justice?

Not everyone was willing to accept the storm that had arrived.  Ian Smith, the Prime Minister of Rhodesia, did not, and took his country out of the British Empire.

Rhodesia no longer exists. Zimbabwe, a wreck of a country, exists in its place.  Many of the departing African colonies have had terrible post-colonial histories, but Zimbabwe has one of the worst.  It's story is complicated, but in part that disaster can be put at Smith's feet.  MacMillan proved correct, Smith's actions gave strength to Marxist revolutionaries, who won, and who effectively destroyed the country's economy.

Elections have consequences, as they say, and so does ignoring reality.  Wyoming has a lot of going for it, but it doesn't control every trend in the United States or globe.  Every time somebody says "electric cars will never work here", they cast a vote for fantasy.  That's a minor example, but it's a relevant one.  Harriet Hageman claimed, back in April when she gave her speech in Powell, that her first act in Congress would be to introduce a bill requiring the United States to use American energy.

Well fine, pass that bill (it won't pass), but what she means is almost certainly petroleum oil and coal.  California, with a population dwarfing ours, is already legislatively phasing out the use of petroleum.  Congress isn't going to be able to mandate a change in course that's already been taken, and not just here, but all over the globe and in the hearts of minds of consumers.

Wyoming has a lot going for it economically, and a lot of that predates its oil and coal history.  But will it value it, or will it insist that we return to the 1980s and expect others to go along?  I fear the latter is almost certain.

In addition to that, when Hageman claimed nativist grounds for people to vote for her, she ironically pointed out something that's very much impacted our recent political history.  Yes, Cheney was not from Wyoming but John Barrasso isn't either.  Foster Freiss, whom the far right here adored, very much was not.

Nor are a host of Wyoming political figures, some of whom are angry relocates from points further east.

The point isn't that you have to be born here to win elections or to run, but rather this. We should be very careful about taking our political views from out of state imports, whose presence is usually temporary.  In recent years, particularly in the COVID era, we've received a lot of new people, but the backstory is a lot of them leave pretty quickly.  The myth of Wyoming is that "everyone is so friendly", which isn't really true.  It's easy to mistake politeness and curiosity for friendly.

Wyoming is a hard place to live and work.  A lot of people flood in when the price of oil is high, and then hang for a while when it drops until they chase the dollar somewhere else. A lot of those people bring their views, often from the west of the Missippii, south of the Picket Wire region, and that temporarily impacts views here. Freiss, when he ran for office, had a campaign style that somewhat resembled something out of 1970s Alabama, for example.  When they leave, that view usually goes with them.

Likewise, Wyoming throughout its history has had influxes of outsiders, people born well outside the region, who prove to be temporary.  Nice summers are attractive at first, but long winters, no services, and the howling wind take their toll after a few years, and they move on. Something like 50% of people who move here just to move here move on in less than a year.

At the end of the day, Wyomingites, those born here who stayed, and those who moved here, mostly from neighboring states that have a lot of the same character, are invested in the state in ways that others aren't and want its character preserved. That means its entire character.  You can't be the Congressman from the Oil Industry, or the House member from Coal, or the Representative from farmers in Ft. Laramie.  It's the whole smash, and those who have lived and endured here, rather than those taking up temporary residence of a fictional Wyoming that exists only on Yellowstone or Longmire, do have opinions that matter more than those moving through.

That means being honest.  Honesty starts with being honest to yourself first, and then to everyone else.  It's a character trait that's really departed from national politics to a massive degree in recent years.

So, don't make Wyoming suffer, starts with being honest.

Footnotes

1. There's's a mixed metaphor at work here.  The dog/hunt line is usually "that dog doesn't hunt", which is a phrase given to dismiss an argument that doesn't work.  The other line, which Hageman must have been recalling, is "I don't have a dog in that fight", which means that you aren't betting on a dog in a dog fight.  I.e., you have no personal interest in the outcome.

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