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.

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

 

Introduced on this day in 1926, the cartoon emphasized, in its introduction, electrical appliances and how they made life easier.  Power companies used the cartoon figure for decades.  I well recall it from when I was a kid.

There'd been a jail brake in Casper.

A railway disaster in Costa Rica resulted in the deaths of 248 people.

One via Reddit's 100 Years Ago sub, 16 year old Maybelle Addington married 27-year old Ezra J. "Eck" Carter, brother of A.P. Carter, in Virginia giving rise to the "first family of country music".

Country music, we'd note, is a bit deceptive in this context. As we've discussed before, Country & Western were actually two categories of music identified by early record companies, as was Rhythm & Blues.  Western ballads, associated with cowboys and ranching, was really its own distinct genre, as was "Country", which was sometimes referred to as "Hillbilly Music".  The current categories of C&W, Folk, etc, really hadn't set in, in a hard and fast way, either.  Folk and Country music were in fact very rapidly evolving.  Blues, which of course also had a Southern rural origin, was frequently picked up by Country artists at the time, even while it was breaking out in new directions in the Midwest and East coast, where it has already given rise to Jazz.

Last edition:

Saturday, March 13, 1926. Daydreaming.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Art, Clothing, Daily Living

Monday, February 15, 1926. King wins a by-election.

Canadian Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King won a by-election for the representative for Prince Albert, Saskatchewan district, ending the situation of a Prime Minister governing without his own seat in the Parliament

Air mail through a commercial air carrier was accomplished in the U.S. for the firs time.

Ford Motors was the contracted carrier.

Mehmet Celal Bey, Turkish Ottoman administrator who declined to carry out orders during the Armenian genocide, died at age 62.  He paid for his refusal with his official position.'

He compared himself to "a person sitting by the side of a river, with absolute no means of saving anyone. Blood was flowing in the river and thousands of innocent children, irreproachable old people, helpless women, strong young men, were streaming down this river towards oblivion. Anyone I could save with my bare hands I saved, and the others, I think they streamed down the river never to return."

In another context, he'd be regarded as a "righteous amongst the nations"

Last edition:

Sunday, February 14, 1926. The Bamberg Conference.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 2020s, Adolf Hitler, Donald Trump, Führerprinzip, Germany, History repeating itself or at least rhyming, Nazi Party, Populism, The Second Trump Administration, Weimar Germany

Saturday, February 9, 1946. Stalin declares war inevitable.

Stalin in an "election" speech carried on Soviet radio, stated another war was inevitable due to the "capitalist development of the world economy", and that the USSR needed to plan accordingly.

The Chairman:

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin has the floor.

(Comrade Stalin’s appearance in the rostrum was greeted by the voters with loud cheers lasting several minutes. The entire audience in the Bolshoi Theatre rose to its feet to greet Comrade Stalin. There were continuous cries of “Cheers for great Stalin!” “Long live great Stalin, Hurrah!” “Cheers for our beloved Stalin!” )

Comrade Stalin:

Comrades!

Eight years have passed since the last elections to the Supreme Soviet. This has been a period replete with events of a decisive nature. The first four years were years of intense labour on the part of Soviet people in carrying out the Third Five- Year Plan. The second four years covered the events of the war against the German and Japanese aggressors — the events of the Second World War. Undoubtedly, the war was the main event during the past period.

It would be wrong to think that the Second World War broke out accidentally, or as a result of blunders committed by certain statesmen, although blunders were certainly committed. As a matter of fact, the war broke out as the inevitable result of the development of world economic and political forces on the basis of present-day monopolistic capitalism. Marxists have more than once stated that the capitalist system of world economy contains the elements of a general crisis and military conflicts, that, in view of that, the development of world capitalism in our times does not proceed smoothly and evenly, but through crises and catastrophic wars. The point is that the uneven development of capitalist countries usually leads, in the course of time, to a sharp disturbance of the equilibrium within the world system of capitalism, and that group of capitalist countries regards itself as being less securely provides with raw materials and markets usually attempts to change the situation and to redistribute “spheres of influence” in its own favour — by employing armed force. As a result of this, the capitalist world is split into two hostile camps, and war breaks out between them . . .

And so, how should our victory [in World War II] be interpreted? What can this victory signify from the point of view of the state and the development of the internal forces of our country?

Our victory signifies, first of all, that our Soviet social system was victorious, that the Soviet social system successfully passed the test of fire in the war and proved that it is fully viable.

As we know, the foreign press on more than one occasion asserted that the Soviet social system was a “dangerous experiment” that was doomed to failure . . . [but] now we can say that the war has refuted all these assertions of the foreign press and has proved them to have been groundless. The war proved that the Soviet social system is a genuinely people’s system, which grew up from the ranks of the people and enjoys their powerful| support; that the Soviet social system is fully viable and stable form of organization of society . . .

Now a few words about the Communist Party’s plans of work for the immediate future. As you know, these plans are formulated in the new five-year plan, which is to be adopted in the very near future. The main tasks of the new five-year plan are to rehabilitate the devastated regions of our country, to restore industry and agriculture to the prewar level, and then to exceed that level to a more or less considerable extent. Apart from the fact that the rationing system is to be abolished in the very near future (loud and prolonged applause), special attention will be devoted to the expansion of the production of consumers’ goods, to raising the standard of living of the working people by steadily reducing the prices of all commodities (loud and prolonged applause), and to the extensive organization of scientific research institutes of every kind (applause) capable of giving the fullest scope to our scientific forces. (Loud applause.)

I have no doubt that if we give our scientists proper assistance they will be able in the very near future not only to overtake but even outstrip the achievements of science beyond the borders of our country. (Prolonged applause.)

As regards long-term plans, our Party intends to organize another powerful upswing of our national economy that will enable us to raise our industry to a level, say, three times as high as that of prewar industry. We must see to it that our industry shall be able to produce annually up to 50,000,000 tons of pig iron (prolonged applause ), up to 60,000,000 tons of steel (prolonged applause ), up to 500,000,000 tons of coal (prolonged applause ) and up to 60,000,000 tons of oil (prolonged applause ). Only when we succeed in doing that can we be sure that our Motherland will be insured against all contingencies. (Loud applause.) This will need, perhaps, another three five-year plans, if, not more. But it can be done, and we must do it. (Loud applause) . .

In conclusion, permit me to express my thanks for the confidence which you have shown me (loud and prolonged applause. A voice: “Cheers for the great leader of all our victories, Comrade Stalin! “) by nominating me as a candidate for the Supreme Soviet. You need have no doubt that will do my best to justify your confidence. (All rise. Loud and prolonged applause rising to an ovation. Voices in different parts of the hall: “Long live great Stalin, Hurrah!” “Cheers for the great leader of the peoples!” “Glory to great Stalin!” “Long live Comrade Stalin, the candidate of the entire people!” “Glory to the creator of all our victories, Comrade Stalin! “

Charles "Lucky" Luciano was deported to his native Italy where he'd spend the rest of his life, dying in 1962 at age 64.

Luciano in 1948.

Born Salvatore Lucania, the Mafia boss had immigrated to the US in 1906 as a child.

Last edition:

Friday, February 8, 1946. Kim Il Sung's rise. Viola Faber, accused of murdering her stepson, gives birth.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1960s, 1961, 1966, China, Crime, Dwight Eisenhower, Food, Homicide, Kim Il Sung, North Korea, Occupation of Korea, Strike Wave of 1945-1946, USSR

Sunday, February 7, 1926. Negro History Week.

Carter G. Woodson.  Woodson was a professor and historian and an early pioneer in the study of African Americans.

African-American historian Carter G. Woodson initiated "Negro History Week", the precursor of Black History Month.  This is considerably earlier than I would have guessed this occured.

The Italian army took the Libyan city of Jaghbub, the home of the Senussi movement.

The village is actually much closer to Egypt than to any settlement in Libya.

Last edition:

Saturday, February 6, 1926. Linguistic dispute.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1990s, Germany, Italy, Mussolini, Pancho Villa, South Tyrol, the spoken word, Tyrol

Friday, February 6, 1976. Peltier arrested. Prince Bernhard implicated. Smith warns. Black Jack dies.

Leonard Peltier was arrested in Canada and charged with the murder of two FBI agents on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands, the husband of Queen Juliana and the inspector general of the Netherlands Armed Forces, was implicated in a bribery scandal in testimony by an official of the Lockheed Corporation.  He confirmed accepting the bribe in a posthumously published memoir, acknowledging it was a mistake, but claiming all the money went to the World Wildlife Fund.

Sort of an example of how monarchy behaved, the prince is pretty far from a universally admirable person in general, although his record is mixed.  A German, he worked in Germany in the 1930s for IG Faben where he was a member of  the Reiter-SS (SS Cavalry Corps) before it was a full time military establishment, and to the paramilitary National-sozialistisches Kraftfahrerkorps (NSKK) although he never showed any outward Nazi sympathy or political views in general otherwise.  He denied these memberships, although its certain that he belonged.  He claimed to sever all of this ties after marrying Princess Julian, the future queen, in 1937.  During the war, however, he actively supported the Dutch cause and saw military service and was regarded as a war hero by the Dutch, and not without good reason.

He helped found the World Wildlife Fund after the war, and was its first president.  

He had four children by his wife, and two more by mistresses, all daughters.

Rhodesian Prime Minister Ian Smith warned of a new large-scale guerilla offensive against hte country and that it would entail significant military expenditure.

The caisson horse Black Jack died at age 19.

Last edition:

Thursday, February 5, 1976. Swine Flu and Conrail.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, 1976 Swine Flu Outbreak, Army, Disease, Railroads

Tuesday, February 5, 1946. Star of Paris.

Look offered an article on what FDR would have said regarding the ongoing intense look back at the events leading to December 7, 1941, a controversy that most Americans have forgotten occurred.  But it was probably the slice of cheesecake offered up in the form of actress Colleen Townsend that drew attention to the magazine.  Townsend is from California and attended BYU (she was a Mormon growing up).  She entered acting through minor roles in the early 40s, but it was magazine covers that drew the publics attention to her.  She was one of the Yank pinups.  She converted to Presbyterianism in 1948 and married a seminary student in 1950, after which she left acting.  She had a long career as a humanitarian and civil rights worker, and is still living.

TWA's "Star of Paris", a Lockheed Constellation, flew from New York to Paris in the first transAtlantic commercial airline flight.  

The flight took fifteen hours.

More on the flight here:

5–6 February 1946

President Truman established the Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge in Oklahoma.

Last edition:

Monday, February 4, 1946. Weather and War Brides.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, boats and ships, It was because of World War Two, Marriage, The relationship between men and women, Weather

Saturday, February 5, 1876. Doc Holliday arrives in Cheyenne.

John Henry "Doc" Holliday arrived in Cheyenne, Wyoming, following news of gold having been found in the territory.  He went to work there as a faro dealer in the Bella Union Saloon which was owned by Thomas Miller, a partner of John A. Babb for whom he'd been similarly employed in Denver.

Cheyenne Wyoming in 1876.

The Bella Union in Cheyenne was located in what is now the parking lot for the Hacienda restaurant in Cheyenne, so the building is no longer there.  The bar itself did not have a long presence in Cheyenne, as in the fall of 1876 the owner moved the institution to Deadwood, South Dakota, and Holliday went with it.  It was following the regional gold rush.

Holliday was a dentist by trade, but he practiced only a year  before heading West after being diagnosed with tuberculosis.  He briefly resumed dentistry after moving to Dallas, but only very briefly, having to give it up due to the disease, after which he turned to gambling for a livelihood.  The sometimes illegal occupation was one that required carrying a sidearm.

Wyatt Earp wrote of Holliday:

I found him a loyal friend and good company. He was a dentist whom necessity had made a gambler; a gentleman whom disease had made a vagabond; a philosopher whom life had made a caustic wit; a long, lean blonde fellow nearly dead with consumption and at the same time the most skillful gambler and nerviest, speediest, deadliest man with a six-gun I ever knew.

Bat Masterson, who did not like  him, wrote:

While he never did anything to entitle him to a Statue in the Hall of Fame, Doc Holliday was nevertheless a most picturesque character on the western border in those days when the pistol instead of law determined issues.... Holliday had a mean disposition and an ungovernable temper, and under the influence of liquor was a most dangerous man…. Physically, Doc Holliday was a weakling who could not have whipped a healthy fifteen-year-old boy in a go-as-you-please fistfight.

Holliday was a curious figure in various ways, and there have been various efforts to pin down his personality, probably not all successfully. A convert from Presbyterianism to Methodism, he converted to Catholicism on his deathbed and seems to have carried a torch for a cousin who became a nun, Sister Mary Melanie Holliday, with some accounts holding that in spite of his association with Big Nose Kate he pined for her his entire life.

He died in Glenwood Springs, Colorado, in 1887.

Last edition:

Thursday, February 3, 1876. Stage Line.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Equine Transportation, Transportation

Monday,. February 2, 1976. Moynihan resigns.

Daniel Patrick Moynihan resigned  as the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations.in anticipation of running for Congress, although he did not express that goal at the time.

Would that we could be braced by such great mean again.

Last edition:

Friday, January 30, 1976. Opening Pandora's Box.

Labels: 1970s, 1976, Central Intelligence Agency, Conscription, Democracy, Economics, George H.W. Bush

Saturday, January 30, 1926. Pinks and Greens.

The Allied occupation of the first zone of the Rhineland in Germany ended. 

It was a Saturday.

Mitchell was out.

The Army was just introducing its new service uniform.

1926 was the year the U.S. Army adopted an open collared "service uniform", with a different pattern for enlisted men as opposed to officers.  Here Maj. John B. Coulter is shown wearing the newly introduced uniform.  While the cut is a little different, and breeches are not common now, and were then, this is the same basic color scheme of uniform, "pinks and greens" reintroduced for all ranks in 2018, after having been originally phased out in 1954.  While it was a good looking uniform, it was actually not as practical as its predecessor, given that it was supposed to be a combat uniform.  This would cause the Army to rapidly develop combat specific clothing immediately before World War Two.

Officers had to buy their uniforms (they still do) and Coulter must have just purchased his.  Coulter was a cavalryman (hence the breeches) who had entered the Army in 1912 and who would serve until 1952, retiring as a Lt. General.

Last edition:

Wednesday, January 27, 1926. The Paul Whitman Orchestra at UW.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, Education, Music, University of Wyoming