If a man continually blusters, if he lacks civility, a big stick will not save him from trouble….It is both foolish and undignified to indulge in undue self-glorification, and above all, in loose-tongued denunciation of other peoples.
Theodore Roosevelt, 1901.
August 20, 2024, 7:00 p.m.
And the primary results are in! We're off and running for the general election.
Of course, the biggest race of the year, pitting a meandering, lying, babbling Donald Trump and his National Conservative running mate J. D. Vance against a fairly committed left wing but cogent ticket made up of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz wasn't on the ballot. At one time, in Wyoming primaries, you actually did get to voice your opinion on who should run in the Republican or Democratic Party for President, but it was just that, an opinion vote. The ticket was still chosen at conventions, with the Democratic one being open, and the Republican one being closed.
I guess that was confusing or pointless, so that isn't done anymore.
By way of a full confession, I started typing this out before August 20, and I'm posting right as the polls close, so the first part are predications, but probably fairly safe ones.
John Barrasso, twice endorsed by Trump, will have handily defeated Reid Rasner, who is a genuine Trumpist. At one time it looked like Rasner had a chance, but Barrasso out Trumped him and easily won.
Barrasso will face Democrat Scott Morrow.
At least that's what I think occurred.
Harriet Hageman I'm sure won race against the Quixotic effort of Steve Helling. Hopefully Helling quits these races at this point as this is embarrassing.
Hageman will face Kyle Cameron.
cont:
Senator Barrasso's victory was a total blowout.
So was Harriet Hageman's.
Locally, Senator Anderson beat Bryce Reece, but only barely.
Given the campaign Reece ran, that's disappointing. Reece was backed by what frankly were lies.
The longest serving legislator in the U.S. currently, Sen. Charlie Scott, beat out challenger Rob Hendry handily.
Elissa Campbell took retiring House member Jerry Obermueller's seat, keeping the seat in the rational Republican category.
Julie Jarvis handily defeated incumbent far right controversial populist Jeanette Ward for her House seat. It'll be interesting to see if this trend crosses the state, and it'll also be interesting to see if Ward moves on.
For County Commissioner in Natrona County incumbent Dave North came out on top followed by new candidate Casey Coates.
For Casper City Council veteran former legislator Pat Sweeney came out on top with incumbent Amber Pollock second for Ward I, which makes for an interesting reentry into politics for Sweeney.
The Natrona County Senior District passed, but only barely.
August 21, 2024
The big new of the night is that the Freedom Caucus, while Ward went down in Casper, gained in the House overall and there will now be a populist House of Representatives, a very bad development for Wyoming.
To clarify Ward I for Casper, Pat Sweeney, Amber Pollock, Ken Dockweiler and Julie Collins-Thiel, made it through the primary.
The senior district passed by only 110 votes.
cont:
Of note from Miller's article;
The effective head of the Democratic Party issued an immediate statement:
cont:
August 22, 2024
Mary Peltola finished first in Alaska's primary, one of the view in the country which actually makes sense in the modern era. She got over 50% of the primary vote.
Republican Nick Begich III, son of a prominent liberal political family in Alaska, who turned right wing and who has been endorsed by the House Freedom Caucus, came in second with 27 percent and will face Peltola in the general election.
As if having the world's most boring musician artist, James Taylor slated to sing at the DNC, the Democrats had Opera Winfrey speak yesterday. Winfrey is an example of pop baloney that plagues American culture, on both the left and the right, with her particular bland thick cut left of center baloney.
Bill Clinton, who noted that he's younger than Donald Trump, spoke as well, demonstrating a remarkable political recovery. Republicans immediately took to social media to attempt to criticize him for his affair with Monica Lewinsky, which of course just serves to point out Donald Trump's behavior with women. Clinton's flights on Epstein's plan, which did occur, were noted as well, but then Trump flew on it nearly as much. So the point of the criticism was . . . ."
On Trump, Tammy Duckworth was on one of the weekend shows and outright called Trump a "five time" "draft dodger", and called him a "draft dodging coward" in a speech at, I believe, the DNC. Four out of the five deferments Trump had during the war were student deferments.
It's interesting who the ghosts of the Vietnam War is returning to haunt once again. I haven't heard somebody use student deferments to equate with draft dodging for years, although I have heard it.
August 23, 2024
Names for the Natrona County Senior District election, just approved, must be submitted by August 30.
And more proof that the National Conservatives may have shot their bolt:
Trump running away from Project 2025 and its authors.
Trump apparently spent a fair amount of the Democratic Convention basically live tweeting it, which is weird.
This showed up on Twitter, where somebody made this comment, so I'm not the only one who has had this reaction:
Am I the only one kinda floored that the GOP candidate for the United States President, is trolling social media like a disgruntled teenage boy who's girlfriend just dumped him? 🙄😬
cont:
Robert Kennedy has dropped out of the race and endorsed Trump.
Frankly, I doubt that makes any difference in the race whatsoever.
August 24, 2024
The third place finisher in the Alaska House race dropped out in hopes of throwing the race to the GOP.
And here, a real rambling string of Trump weirdisms:
Babble.
August 25, 2024
Relic of the 1970s Cornel West is not eligible to appear on Pennsylvanian's Presidential election ballot.
August 26, 2024
Trump's now mad at the network hosting the upcoming debate and threatening to back out.
August 27, 2024
The Harris campaign wants to unmute the mikes in the upcoming debate, should it occur.
That was a rule that the Biden team imposed for the last debate, but now its the Trump team that wants to keep it, fearful that Trump's inability to mute himself will sabotage him.
And frankly, Trump has grown increasingly incoherent on occasion, prone to going off on long wondering weird babbling.
On Twitter this morning is a clip of an extremely tired looking Donald Trump (he looks absolutely fatigued) rambling about climate change.
Okay, having lived through the dementia of one of my parents, this is frightening. He sounds, frankly, like somebody in the early stages of it.
August 28, 2024
There's some sort of lesson in that last one.
One of those is believing your own propaganda. It had been obvious for months that he was gong to lose.
August 29, 2024
J. D. Vance at a rally stated:
Kamala Harris is disgraceful. We’re going to talk about a story out of those 13 brave, innocent Americans who lost their lives, it’s that Kamala Harris is so asleep at the wheel that she won’t even do an investigation into what happened, and she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up. She can…she can go to hell.
Vance is a co-religious of mine and this statement is sinful. First of all, telling somebody they can "go to hell" is sinful. Secondly, this is a lie. Harris would have had nothing to do with the American withdrawal from Afghanistan as Vice President, which is what this statement is about. He well knowns that. Moreover, while the withdrawal was done badly, any withdrawal following Donald Trump's surrendered to the Taliban would have been difficult.
Afghanistan, it might be noted, has been in the news, now that the Taliban is back in control. Taliban control can be attributed to Donald Trump. He surrendered.
August 30, 2024
J.D. Vance, who is cutting a pretty wide swath, has been speaking a lot. I suspect that's because Trump isn't really up to it.
Anyhow, Vance was booed by a firefighters union in Boston and then went on to try to mock Kamala Harris with a video of Miss North Carolina giving a poor answer to a pageant question. Given Vance's prior cat lady comments, that's drawn the comments that his misogynistic, which were already out there, and ironically the figure he lampooned in that fashion, a Miss North Carolina, is a big Republican supporter.
And, from another recent Trump address:
Some people don't eat bacon anymore. This was caused by their horrible energy. Wind. They want wind all over the place. When it doesn't blow, we have a problem.
cont:
I do the weave. Do you know what the weave is? I’ll talk about 9 different things, and they all come back brilliantly together. And friends of mine that are like English professors say, ‘It’s the most brilliant thing I’ve ever seen, but the fake news say, ‘He rambled.
English professors?
Horse shit.
Well, let's see. First the earth cooled. And then the dinosaurs came, but they got too big and fat, so they all died and they turned into oil. And then the Arabs came and they bought Mercedes Benzes. And Prince Charles started wearing all of Lady Di's clothes. I couldn't believe it. He took her best summer dress, put it on and went to town.
Jacobs, Airplane II.
August 31, 2024
Seemingly feeling the heat, Trump is now against the Florida abortion measure.
Matt Malcom, who lost in the primary, is now suing to get on the ballot as an independent, in his Cheyenne district. A Wyoming law prohibits a primary loser from doing this.
September 2, 2024
Casper sent out a mailer with its Sixth Cent proposals:
“Proposition 1: $7,300,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to reconstruct the aging, failing, and undersized Metro Animal Shelter to better provide for animal health and safety.” (The current shelter is located at 2392 Metro Road.)
“Proposition 2: $5,000,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to fund a portion of the total construction costs of a second sheet of ice adjacent to the existing Casper Ice Arena.” (The arena is located at 1801 E. 4th St.)
“Proposition 3: $4,200,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to install a new quad capacity chair lift to replace the aging and outdated lift and add lighting at Hogadon Ski Area.”
“Proposition 4: $4,000,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to construct two fastpitch softball fields for league competition and high school use.”
“Proposition 5: $4,400,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to partially fund costs associated with the replacement of the City Casper’s outdated Fire Station #1.”
“Proposition 6: $5,000,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to fully replace the outdated and obsolete equipment for the 911 Dispatch Center.”
“Proposition 7: $3,600,000 and interest earned thereon to the City of Casper to build a new auxiliary gym to provide much needed space for programming at the Casper Recreation Center.” (The Center is located at 1801 E. 4th St.)
“Proposition 8: $1,500,000 and interested earned thereon to the City of Casper to design, reconstruct, and preserve the historic Washington Park Bandshell.”
September 5, 2024
Liz Cheney endorsed Kamala Harris for President.
September 6, 2024
Donald Trump proposed giving Elon Musk a government role as an efficiency expert.
He also proposed to cut the corporate tax rate to 15%. The corporate tax rate should be hiked, not cut.
Ugh.
I am promising low taxes, low regulations, low energy costs, low interest rates, secure borders, low, low, low crime.
Americans seem incapable of grasping the fact that they are grossly undertaxed, which is a big part of the reason the US deficit is out of control. Rates in the past have been much, much higher than they currently are, particularly on the upper income tax bracket Trump and Musk are part of.
Also, energy costs, interest rates and crime is all low when judged by almost any historical standard.
In a meeting of businessmen Trump was asked a question about health care costs and then went into tariffs.
?
Some good political news:
Gadfly candidate Rammell says he's giving up on politics and his interview with the Cowboy State Daily is his last.
cont:
Former Vice President Dick Cheney has endorsed Kamala Harris.
September 8, 2024
George and Laura Bush will not be endorsing anyone this election cycle.
In doing so, a spokesman noted that President Bush had retired from politics "years ago".
He's one month younger than Donald Trump. . .
cont:
Donald Trump has indicated that in Florida he intends to vote yes on a ballot measure to legalize marijuana.
September 10, 2024
The White Stripes have sued the Trump campaign over its use of the song Seven Nation Army.
cont:
I would have asked the states to submit alternative slates of electors and let the country have the debate about what actually matters and what kind of an election that we had,
J. D. Vance.
Absolutely shameful.
Related threads:
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Labels: 2020s, 2024 Election, Blog Mirror, Commentary, Coronavirus Pandemic, Donald Trump, Education, inflation, J. D. Vance, Kamala Harris, National Conservatism, Populism, religion, Tim Walz, Wyoming
