Autarky is the economic concept of producing everything a nation consumes within its own borders. It's been tried numerous times, and inevitably leads at best to high prices and deprivation. At worst, it results in warfare.
Autarky was the official economic model of the Nazi Party after German economist Hjalmar Schacht joined the party in 1926 and after Gregor Strasser was ousted from party influence.* Nazi Germany provides a perfect example of how it doesn't work. Germany was a major industrial power leading up to, during and after World War Two (it still is), but it could never produce enough of anything for its own economy, even in peacetime. Moreover, it didn't have the raw materials to supply all it did produce. It imported 20% of its food supply in the early 1930s, and by the late 1930s the Nazis had only managed to boost that to 83%.
The solution was simple.
What the Germans did have, they could just seize from neighboring countries through war, and then either kill off the native population or subjugate it. That's exactly what it attempted to do. It pursued that murderously in Poland and the Soviet Union, and through vassal states in the form of France, Romania and Spain. Where that proved to be impossible. . . for the time being, it used bullying and threats, such as in regard to Sweden.
Even at that, it was never able to do it.
That seems to be to some extent what Donald Trump is advocating right now.
If we were playing hardball, all we'd do is say we're going to do no trading with Canada. If we did no trading with Canada would save $90 billion.
We could do tremendous good for ourselves by just not trading with countries.. We lose with Mexico $195 billion a year. They have nothing that we have to have, I mean. Hot tamales, tomatoes, a couple of things
Trump seems to believe that by closing the economic border with Canada and Mexico, and everyone else, unless they essentially become vassal states, the US can simply go it alone and not be harmed. Where it's obvious that won't work, we'll force acquisition, as we have now done in Venezuela and keep threatening to do with Greenland.
This is immoral, and stupid.
You'd think that a guy who went to Wharton would have a basic grasp of economics. Open economic borders, truly open economic borders, make countries rich, not poor. That doesn't mean that there's never a place for tariffs, including for protectionism, but it's generally a bad idea.
What makes for more sense is for the United States, Mexico, and Canada, to have a seamless economy with no tariffs at all. The US and Canada had a nearly duty free relationship prior to Trump, save for the infamous very high ones on dairy, poultry, and egg products. Those latter tariffs were absurd, but the US also has absurd tariffs in the agricultural sector. The US relationship with Mexico is, right now, duty free.
An absolute lack of tariffs is how it should be between the three major North American economies. Only an an economic ignoramus would disrupt that.
And only an immoral person would advocate taking the oil of another nation that is providing it under the gun. The US has been an oil addict for a century, but was showing signs of getting off the stuff. Trump, with his "it's always the 1950s" mindset can't seem to get out of that.
Trump should really know better. Wharton has a reputation as one of the best, maybe the best, business school in the country. He owes us an explanation, which he seems to be incapable of articulating, for his idiotic economic views. Wharton, and I'm serious about this, does as well. I know one Wharton graduate personally, and he is brilliant. But the example of Donald Trump is to weird to explain. For that matter, the example of Wyoming's Chuck Gray, who is an absolute Trump sycophant, is as well.
We need a combination of supreme moral sensitivity and economic knowledge. Economically ignorant moralism is as objectionable as morally callous economism. Ethics and economics are two equally difficult subjects, and while the former needs discerning and expert reason, the latter cannot do without humane values.
Wilhelm Röpke, A Humane Economy: The Social Framework of the Free Market
September 8, 2026
Retaliatory Canadian tariffs took place today with duties ranging from 15% to 50% across hundreds of U.S. products worth a total CA$27.6 billion, including dairy, agricultural equipment, paper, household appliances and electronics.
This will hurt Canadian consumer through increased cost to them, and American producers due to decreased demand.
And as this wasn't enough, 5he United States is banning the import of some dairy products motorcycles and most alcoholic beverages from Canada.
This is rank stupidity. Peter Navarro ought to be sent to kindergarten and Wharton declared a clown college.
So, if you can, go out and buy a Can Am motorcycle and some Crown Royal.
Well, probably not. I'm too old to start riding a motorcycle (I'd much prefer a mule) and I can't stand Crown Royal. But if I liked Canadian whiskey, I'd go buy some for spite.
I may just for spite.
September 10, 2026
Cont:
U.S. wholesale inflation hits 5.4% annually in August 2026.
More good news from the Trump administration.
September 11, 2026
Lame duck defeated state senator Bob Ide used the Hilltop disaster to say something monumentally stupid.
Oil everywhere is up over $100/bbl and set to rise.
Prices at the pump are at record highs.
This appears to be set to get extremely bad.
September 16, 2026
The Fed raised interest rates, contrary to the wish of King Donald.
cont:
This guy is a Wharton graduate?
September 17, 2026
Railroad surcharges on grain have doubled over the past year.
September 18, 2026
If we buy $2 billion worth of bananas from Brazil, we’re actually losing $2 billion. So if we stop eating bananas, we actually save $2 billion.
Donald Trump
Oh for goodness sakes. What an idiotic statement.
But one Trump appears to really believe.
First of all, a trade deficit in and of itself, unless you believe in autarky, si not a bad thing. A rich country, which Trump is helping to end our status as, will probably have a trade deficit. Trade deficits can be bad, but not simply because they exist, but for other reasons.
And, this is a classic example from the Wealth of Nations.
The US produces hardly any bananas. Just some in Florida, which stay in Florida, and some in Hawaii.
The US imports hardly any bananas from Brazil. Brazil only exports about $21 million to $24 million anywhere. Brazil does import $11.23 billion in fuel from the US. And this economic analysis is moronic.
Even assuming that we bought bananas from Brazil, which we do not, if we are to eat bananas, and people like bananas, we have to buy them from a foreign source. We given them money, we get bananas.
That doesn't make us poor, it actually does the opposite.
Which, once again, leads to this:
WHARTON, WHAT THE FUCK IS MATTER WITH YOU? HOW DID THIS GUY GRADUATE WHAT IS SUPPOSED TO BE ONE OF THE BEST ECONOMIC SCHOOLS IN THE WORLD?
September 24, 2026
The Secretary of Agriculture reports that if you don't like beef prices, you can switch to chicken or pork.
That's frankly quite true, and it's a thing that producers need to worry about. Pork was the primary meat for most Americans up until the post Civil War era. Once people make a major shift in diet, they tend to stick with it.
September 21, 1946 advertisement from the American Meat Institute featuring a leg of lamb.
On this topic, the news relates that a top Texas BBQ joint will no longer offer beef brisket. Too expensive. That isn't a good sign.
Also regarding meat, the USDA is recalling 167,000 lbs of uninspected beef, pork and goat meat.
On all of this, the meat prices would be easy to blame on Trump, as the Wharton School of Business seems to be economically incompetent. This, however, is largely due to other factors, although I don't know how to explain the inspection glitch.
One thing that will impact the price of meat. . .and everything else, is the price of fuel. Indeed, after a year that featured record cattle prices, for those who had cattle to sell, profits are now being lost to diesel fuel.
A common cry out there in the hinterlands right now is to impose an export ban on diesel fuel. Such a ban was in place from 1975 to 2015. It's really debated what lifting the ban would do. Midwest GOP candidates started crying for it recently, but Wyoming's Congressional representation opposes it. That doesn't tell us much, however, as Wyoming's delegation probably wouldn't oppose a proposal to nuke the state.
Anyhow, Trump indicated support for a temporary ban, and then energy secretary Chris Wright walked it back, which is extremely interesting, particularly as farmers in the Midwest are now having real second thoughts about King Donald now that they realize he's fucking them with his policies, and not other people they didn't car about.
September 29, 2026
The Trump ban on the importation of Canadian alcohol, dairy and motorcycles, comes into effect today.
The ban is moronic.
Trump rolled back fuel efficiency standards on automobiles, as he's an ancient fool about to die and lives in the past in many ways.
Wyoming has always had some progressive and farsighted people working behind the scenes while, at the same time, the troglodyte faction of the GOP, particularly strongly represented in the Wyoming Freedom Caucus From The South seek to believe it's 1861.
Electric vehicles are coming, and diesel at $6.00 will help revive interest in them. The comments on this, of course, are "dem new fangle aut o mobiles won't replace the horse", basically. EVs are coming, like it or not, and when the Trump administration is in the outhourse of history where it so richly belongs, they'll significantly revive.
Today’s action revoking access for journalists from CNN, POLITICO, and MSNOW violates the First Amendment. The implications extend beyond these organizations: a standard used to exclude one news outlet because of its coverage could be applied to any outlet in the future. The American people, through a free and independent press, must be able to scrutinize those elected to power, regardless of whether government officials view it favorably. That’s why courts have repeatedly held that once the White House provides access to journalists, it cannot deny that access arbitrarily or based on the content of their reporting. The WHCA calls on the administration to immediately restore our colleagues’ access.
Jacqui Heinrich, WHCA President
In a really remarkable event, the broadcast media is boycotting the Trump Administration after it banned some press outlets from covering King Donald.
Donny loves, and feeds on, the attention, and it'll be interesting to see how this pans out. Yesterday the White House blew the coverage on the opening use of the helipad so that nobody could really hear what King Donny had to say.
Today King Donny's admin tried to pass off the press ban as being in the interest of national security, which recently has been his default position on everything. That's why King Donny is building a ballroom, that's why we need a Triumphal Arch.
The bloom may be off the red stinkweed of Trumpism as by and large, the public just isn't buying it at all.
Good for the press to finally find its courage. It's been lacking. This Week expresses addressed the Trump ban.
Dr. John trotted out.
The GOP hauled out the uninspiring Dr. John Barrasso, majority whip, to justify the GOP's malfeasance.
Dr. John is a pretty uninspiring speaker. This was no exception. He attempted to justify the press ban saying that the press had an obligation to report fairly.
That's a really dangerous position for a local politician to take, quite frankly. He didn't sound like he really meant it as he knows that they do report fairly. What he also knows is that they don't report, locally, too deeply, at least they haven't until recently. They're starting too thanks to the online journals which have been a lot more proactive in digging things up than the print media ever was.
Barrasso is turning out to be a worthless Senator for the state. He has four more years to serve. My suspicion is that this will be his last term, if the 74 year old Senator lives through it. I think people are tired of him and he won't want to go down in defeat. He'll retire and move somewhere else, as he was never really from here to start with.
Dr. John was in Iowa where he was campaigning for a Republican candidate there. Wow, the Midwest must really like bland if somebody thinks Dr. John is going to help. Asked about what is going on, the doctor mustered up this reply:
Well, people all around the country are feeling the pain. I’m hearing it in Wyoming with our farmers and ranchers as well. But people vote about what’s going on in their life and their future. And we know we need to do more. We need to get more money into people’s pockets. That’s what Republicans want to do. But let’s talk about what we have done. And that is we’ve prevented a $4 trillion tax increase. We’ve gotten rid of taxes on tips and social security and on overtime. And we know what the Democrats would do if they were able to take over. They would put all those taxes back on for the purpose of paying for health care for illegal immigrants. So they want to put on taxes on waitresses, on nurses who work overtime, firefighters, and on our seniors. I mean, there’s a huge difference between where Republicans want to take this country and where Democrats want to take this country. Those Democrats that are so unpopular in your poll, why? They want to eliminate Immigration and Customs Enforcement. They want to defund the police. They want to get rid of the military. They want to open the borders. They talk about opening the prisons and putting these prisoners back in our communities. That doesn’t make us safer, it doesn’t make us more prosperous. And that is the difference between common sense and the craziness. And I think that’s what this election is going to be about.
And
Well, we’re always looking for ways to put more money in people’s pockets. And I hear it in Wyoming all the time at the grocery store, at the gas station, people are paying more. And we need to do more. And that’s why we need more American energy production, we need to get rid of regulations, we need to do more with permitting. That’s legislation we’re working on now. The president and the Republicans are focused on all of those things at the time that Democrats have gone so far to the left that they don’t want to do those sorts of things. And I’ll tell you, once this war in Iran is over, diesel prices are going to go down and stay down under President Trump. But they would stay up forever under the Democrats and specifically diesel in Wyoming, I was in Meeteetse, Wyoming last week, talking to ranchers and farmers there, diesel’s over $6 a gallon now. But in California, it’s over $8 a gallon. And the difference is the rules, the regulations, all the climate issues in California. If the Democrats took over, prices would go up to those levels which are over $2 higher in California than they are in Wyoming right now.
So, inflation is going up and fuel prices are killing us, but the Democrats are bad because Dr. John says so.
Not very inspiring.
Not only that, but Barrasso has joined the GOP liars club. Raise taxes so we could give healthcare to illegal immigrants. Bullshit. Taxes do need to be raised, but because we aren't paying for the government.
It's almost as if Dr. John had a list of things he had to say, so he made sure he said them all as quickly as possible.
And diesel being $6.00/gal in Wyoming isn't made better by it being $8.00/gal in California. Oh, we feel so good about that here.
Beef
A popular Trump line right now is that you don't mind paying more for fuel as you don't want Iran to have a nuke.
M'eh.
Secretary Rollins took a similar tone on the price of beef.
Instead of eating less beef as the price continued to rise, Americans began to eat more beef. And even though the price of a pound of ground beef was $6.50, most Americans say, 'I'm good with that. I want this protein for my family.' So they continue to buy.
Um, sure.
When, by the way, did everyone start calling meat "protein". Knock it off.
Huge
The video footage of the helipad unveiling reveals it to be huge.
I didn't really have an appreciation of its size until I saw the video.
I really don't know what to make of the helipad. In some ways it makes sense and it was well done. I also think that the President doesn't need a giant Sikorsky helicopter and that all the prior Marine Corps 1 helicopters were gigantically overblown as well. One of the smaller business helicopters would be plenty large enough, quite frankly.
They wouldn't have all the countermeasures, I know. Well, too freaking bad. The President is supposed to be the chief executive of limited powers, not an emperor. Flying around in an armored helicopter just gives that much more of a delusion of the opposite.
Speaking of monumental works, I had an exchange, on Twitter, with a MAGA over the ballroom. It was interesting, as her mind was so completely closed and she was utterly incapable of realizing it.
Besotted
She was convinced that anyone opposed to the ballroom had to be a "liberal" who "hated" Trump. I'm opposed to it. I hate what Trump is doing to the country, but I don't hate a living soul. We are required in Christianity to exhibit agape towards our enemies, and frankly Trump is the enemy of decency in a lot of ways. We should pray for his well-being and salvation.
In the exchange I gave my reasons for opposing the ballroom. Well, some of them, not all of them. The list would be large.
The principal reasons I detest the ballroom, I'll note, is because of the illegality of its construction and the illegality of the destruction of the wing where it is located. I'm not a fan of the wings of the White House in general. I think the whole thing ought to be restored to some prior appearance.
I also think the bunkers that were put in and those being built ought to go. As with the helicopter, building a bunker is something that shouldn't be done unless it's done for every single American.
I didn't go into it but I also detest the overblown size and the intended interior embellishments are in horrifically bad taste.
The latter, of course, can and will be removed, if the monstrosity stands.
Anyhow, while I have very wide ranging views, I'm generally very conservative. Indeed, Trump and the MAGAs are not conservatives at all. At this point, they're populist of the fascist variety.
Her argument, lifted from Trump, was that the ballroom would benefit future Presidents. I asked how, and she couldn't provide how. Even though I don't believe it will benefit a living soul, and that it will rightfully be blown to the ground by a future administration, I could make up reasons to support that argument.
Most revealing, however, is that her basic worldview, which came through very clearly, is that if you claim to be an American you have an absolute duty to love Donald Trump. If you don't, you are a traitor.
During World War Two there was a Marine Corps officer who received the Silver Star for heroism. He was later killed in the war. He was also a veteran of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade and was an admitted communist.
I have no doubt he loved his country.
For that matter, Sterling Hayden, the famous actor, also was a Marine Corps officer, and a member of the OSS, who was briefly a member of the Communist party.
I have no doubt that he loved his country.
I doubt that Donald Trump loves his.
And I know that those who love Donald Trump so much they see everything he does as correct do not love their countrymen. And if you hate your countrymen because of their political beliefs, you hate your country.
Fairytale balls
One of the interesting things about the "benefitting future Presidents" line is that it fits into the Trump narrative perfectly. Trump sees himself as a sort of monarch and the White House as a palace.
It's just supposed to be a house.
No. 10 Downing Street doesn't have a ballroom. 24 Sussex Drive doesn't have one either. The Hôtel Matignon doesn't have one either. Even the Novo-Ogaryovo Estate doesn't have one, and its quite lavish.
The Kremlin does. So does Buckingham Palace.
Hmm. . . . .
That really shows us a glimpse of Trump's mindset. And contrary to what MAGAs like to imagine, no prior President has ever asked for a dedicated ballroom.
It's all just a weird fantasy and a glimpse into the American inferiority complex. We may have rebelled against a king, but in some ways we never got over being besotted by them. Even to this day we follow what the British royal family is doing as if it matters to us at all.
So here you have it.
Abolitio nominis
Back during Roman times, the Senate could issue a decree of abolitio nominis, although it's pretty unclear to me if they called it that. It was an abolition of a leader's name to the full extent possible.
The Roman Senate well knew that it couldn't really erase an Emperor's name from history, so it was symbolic. But it is worth noting that some very early societies effectively nearly did achieve just that. The purpose was to express maximum public disdain for the disgraced person.
It's easy to think the US never attempted anything like that, but perhaps it slightly has in the case of the removal of Confederate monuments which started some years ago, and then generally stopped under Trump, whose world outlook doves relatively well with a lot of Confederates or at least Dixiecrats, which is what he really is. At the time, I was of mixed view as erasing history bothers me, and that reflected the history of the attempt at reviving Confederate reputations. I find that effort horrific, but I thought having a reminder of it served a purpose. And, also, quite frankly as times change the views of various persons from the past change as well. Thomas Jefferson was a great man, for instance, but it's pretty clear that he was also screwing his late wife's enslaved half sister when she was only 14. He was 44. She was his youngest daughters nanny. The children from the illicit union were born into slaver.
That's warped.
So, suffice it to say, leaders of the past have some warts on them.
But things like rebelling for slavery or ignoring the legalities of things while in office that are open and obvious at the time are another matter. Jefferson was a domestic creep, and there's no defending that, but the weird mores of his culture made that less weird than it would seem now, although there were plenty of rumors at the time and it's hard not to regard the liasons as starting off, at least, as a type of rape. Anyhow, the Confederate monuments came up mostly in the 1910s. It's my view now they ought to all come down. Trump has brought me to that.
Trump is such a horrific person that some sort of decree of abolitio nominis needs to be made when he's gone. The American instinct is always "well, let's all reconcile".
Let's not.
Recognizing mistakes is one thing. Lots of MAGAs who should have known better are now crossing over into sanity as their own wallets are looted by Trump's policies. I don't care what brings them back into some sort of reality, I think they ought to be welcomed back. But diehard MAGAs and people who are going to serve Trump until the last days of his administration, not so much. Karoline Leavitt, for example, can be forgiven, but not readmitted to decent society. Vance and Rubio should be made to retire from politics.
But because Trump has shown such disdain for the law, he should be made an example of. And the first part of that is to declare his second presidency a legal nullity. Given his status as an insurrectionist, there's a legal grounds to do that. Every order, commission, appointment and whatever that depended on his signature should be immediately declared to be null, void, and of no effect by the next President, irrespective of the impact. Every "agreement" entered into should be declared a nullity, including agreements with foreign powers. The ballroom should be blown down, and the triumphal arch as well, but the next administration immediately.
Yes, it's extreme, but the correction to fascism is extreme.
Real balls
The first inaugural ball was held for George Washington in 1789 in New York. Washington D.C. did not exist yet, of course. It was an unofficial ball which, if we must have these, is how they should be in my view.
The first official one was in 1809 for James Madison. It was held at Longs Hotel. Balls didn't occur at all in 1853, 1913, 1921, 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 2021. I don't think they should be held at all anymore, but when they are, there are numerous official balls. Clinton had fourteen one year, which is absurd.
Inflation
The GOP is seriously worried about inflation as everyone is seriously worried about it. It's flopping around like a fish on the deck trying to explain high fuel prices to MAGA bases like agriculture and truck transportation.
It's not going to work.
It took hitting their own pocketbooks but all of a sudden truck drivers are mad at Trump. Well, they ought to be, but it's too late. Trump's not able to help.
Farmers and ranchers, who started to be angry a while back, are angry once again for the same reason, and in the case of farmers they're upset about potash, most of which comes from Canada, now being tariffed.
Oops.
King Donny tried to claim that we were going to get potash from Belarus. That claim survived a few hours until the Belarusians said, nope, we don't have any to sell you.
The claim on fuel, of course, is that it'll all go down when the war is over. Given as the war is getting worse, not over, there's not much stock that can be put in that claim. And the potash situation can only be solved by not being an asshole to Canada.
Even there, the diehard MAGAs are convinced that the Canadians have been picking on us for decades. This is just flat out false. The border was basically duty free until Trump came in and tore up the very deal that he'd arrived upon with Canada during his first term.
The entire thing has caused now desperate Republicans to ponder taking extreme measures on topics they don't grasp. There's a move, for example, to ban the exportation of diesel fuel.
The refining of petroleum products doesn't work the way people think it does and the price is very heavily dependent upon the cost of the raw product. The refractions that become diesel and jet fuel are there no matter what. There's pretty good reason to believe that banning the export of diesel fuel doesn't do anything to its price, and might just raise it.
We may, of course, get to find out.
Frankly, at this point, my prediction is fuel prices are never coming down. The wars gone on too long, and too much damage has been done to Middle Eastern infrastructure to change that.
This might have some good side benefits, however. One might be the acceleration of the switch to electric vehicles. I actually overheard somebody whose family is employed in the petroleum industry discussing a desire to get an electric vehicle yesterday. Another may be a switch to rail transportation, which is a much better means of transporting goods in the first place. In agriculture, there are means of relying on petroleum less, and that may start to occur more and more in livestock production at least. A lot of the television farmers and ranchers that are interviewed look like they've never walked a day in their life, they might start to. The end of ATVs and driving everywhere may start to arrive.
Maybe a slight "think this out" trend might start to. Truckers and farmers who voted for Trump are getting exactly what they deserve. Unfortunately, the rest of us have been dragged along with them.
Diesel fuel prices have shot up since King Donny thought that beating Iran would be a cheap and easy matter, and hence attacked them.
What the war is about is not really clear. King Donald has given multiple excuses for it but with the price of fuel shooting up, he's latched on to the "Iran was going to get a bomb" line. According to an article in Scientific American Iran was, in fact, nowhere close to being able to do that.
And there are other reasons to suspect that was only in the background. The war really looks like an idea that Bibi Netanyahu had knowing that Trump was pliable and probably that the administration was packed with far right wing Evangelicals who see whatever Israel does as sanctioned by God to some degree. You can't blame Bibi for that, it was a golden opportunity to knock a major Israeli enemy down a few pegs, if not out of the enemy category entirely.
It didn't work.
Right now, we're stuck in what looks like an endless war with Iran. All the conventional theories about how to win the war are wrong. The war turns out to be as Clausewitzian as any. In order to win, we'd have to invade the country with ground troops and not even King Donald is up for that.
In the meantime, the economic warfare Iran is conducting is working really well. Iran has brought its clients, the Houthis, into the fight, and they've hit Saudi Arabia. The US has done nothing about that, in spite of a Saudi request for assistance. Indeed, we've apparently told the Houthis, who have "Death to America" as part of their slogan, that we'll turn a blind eye to that spat. The Saudi military is not widely regarded as a very good one, which is problematic as they are being put in a situation in which they may well have to conduct a ground invasion of Yemen.
So the price of diesel is way up.
Of course, King Donald and his flunkies insist that its up as Ukraine his hitting Russian petroleum facilities. That claim is partially true, but they've been doing that for years now. The price didn't start to skyrocket until recently.
King Donny, you own this.
And that will impact the price of everything. The trucking industry likes to boast that "everything comes by truck". Well, a lot does, and that's a problem. Everything that comes by truck is going to have its price go up. Everything that goes by rail will as well.
In short, everything.
And we haven't even touched on the costs to agriculture.
So, in desperation, some members of Congress have noticed that the US experts diesel fuel. If we prohibit that, the price will go down, right?
Probably not.
Petroleum products in general are one of scale. If there's less of a market, refiners might just switch to something else. And of course the price of petroleum itself will likely not go down.
And hence this.
Diesel, and gasoline, prices may be Trump's one real lasting legacy.
We weren't really ready to start a new one of these, but Chuck Gray has been in such rare form recently as it starts to look like he's going to lose in ten days and his dreams of a carpetbagging political career be crushed, that it mandates it.
Gray, as Secretary of State, sits on a variety of state boards and has been using that position to attempt to advance his campaign for higher office, any higher office, all along. Generally in the global warming is a fib camp, he at one time was okay with development projects of all types but now is anti "woke wind". Lots of people don't like the viewscape and land use aspect of wind and solar farms, and he's hoping to tap into that dislike, but he's such a disagreeable pissant he can't seem to say it that way. Nor can he explain his prior positions.
The real gem in this is that he almost voted to preclude use of an access road to a power substation that provides power to farmers on the basis that it might receive electrical power from solar farms or wind farms or provide power to data centers.
When the State treasurer noted that this meant, he changed his vote, but had to blame the whole thing on somebody else.
Data centers are now big in the news around here, and for good reason. Gray is opposing them as he figures it's good politics. Put a gigantic strip mine in over the same area, and he'd be all for it. It's difficult to tell from one moment to the next if Republican candidates this year are members of the Flat Earth Society or Greenpeace.
Gray is particularly disgusting. He's consistently rude and nasty. It's difficult to understand why anyone would vote for him, unless they're really duped.
I wonder how this news works for people like Gray:
August 14, 2026 Oil supply disruptions due to King Donny's war are predicated to last well into 2027 if not through it. Diesel is up over $5.00/gallon here locally. There's no way on earth prices like that don't cause a rise in the price of everything else. And, related to that:
Bessent was sent out yesterday to try to calm fears, but ended up being ridiculed. The US is buying back bonds which did help stabilize the bond market, at least for now. People have been wondering about the appeal of Democratic Socialism all of a sudden. I think this states it pretty well:
I'm not for all of those things. I'm not for a universal basic income, or universal childcare. But the point is very well made. And this:
First of all, beef prices have nothing to do with Joe Biden. Secondly, the "thank you for our attention" line is stupid. The real stupidity here is that American agriculturalist support the GOP, which routinely hurts them. Ranchers and Farmers are solidly members of the Leopards Won't Eat My Face Party. Last edition:
