Some election predictions.

If I were to predict who would win the election right now, I think it'll be Trump.

I dread the thought of a second Trump term, and I think he was an embarrassment to the nation in his first, but  that would be my guess.

Anyhow. . .

1.  If Trump wins J. D. Vance ends up President in 2026.

If Trump wins, J. D. Vance will end up President in 2026.

Indeed, I think National Conservatives are planning on it.

Trump already sounds really weird a fair amount of the time.  By 2026, he'll be issuing some unmistakably demented proclamations, and his cabinet will declare him unfit to serve.

And then we'll really be off in a new direction.

2.  If Harris wins, the Trumpites won't accept the results

First of all, they'll be violence for sure. Trump is already priming his most fanatic followers for the concept that the 2024 election will be stolen. The Big Lie No. 2.  

And there will be all sorts of challenges to the results.

Once that is all sorted out, Harris won't turn out to be the extreme leftist that's claimed.  She'll probably a about the same, perhaps a bit more effective, than Biden.

The 2024 Election, Part XXVI. The Early Voting Edition.

October 8, 2024.

Early voting starts today in Wyoming.

October 11, 2024

I have more complaints on grocery. The word grocery. You know, it's sorta simple word, but it sorta means like everything you eat. The stomach is speaking. It always does. And, uh, I have more complaints about that. Bacon and things going up.

Donald Trump.

I could be right now in the most beautiful ocean, on the sand, exposing my really beautiful body - so beautiful - to the sun and the surf…

Donald Trump.

Danica Patrick is going to moderate a J.D. Vance Town Hall.

cont:

Primary results: Eastern Shoshone Business Council and Entertainment Committee

October 21, 2024.

Arnold Palmer receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom from George Bush.

Donald Trump started off a campaign rally in Latrobe, Pennsylvania, with a ten minute surreal ramble a out Latrobe native son, Arnold Palmer, stating as part of them:

Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women — and I love women.  But this guy, this guy, this is a guy that was all man. This man was strong and tough. And I refuse to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, "Oh my God, that's unbelievable".

He also included vulgar comments about Kamala Harris.

You have to tell Kamala Harris that you've had enough, that you just can't take it anymore, we can't stand you anymore, you're a shitass vice president. The worst. You're the worst vice president. Kamala, you're fired. Get the hell out of here.

This is, to say the least, vulgar and odd.

Indeed, while it'll sound like a conspiracy theory, at  this point I'm fairly convinced that National Conservatives have backed Trump so that they can get one of their own, J. D. Vance, in a position to take over once Trump is declared mentally in competent early in a second Trump administration, should it occur.  There's no way that they could elect a candidate as President on their own, but with a weirdly acting Trump, they may very well get one in this fashion.

Cont:

Two of the panelist on This Week openly stated that the Arnold Palmer comments are due to a mental decline in Trump.  One stated it was age related, and certainly they both implied it.

Cont:

Tapper: Is the closing message you really want voters to hear from Donald Trump stories about Arnold Palmer's genitals?

Johnson: Let's put the rhetoric aside

Tapper: People have concerns about his fitness and stability. Why is he talking about Arnold Palmer's genitals in front of Pennsylvania voters?

Johnson: Don't say it again we don't have to say it

October 22, 2024

Barrasso Joins Trump At Steelers Game; Crowd Gives Ex-Pres Thunderous Welcome

Primary results: Northern Arapaho Business Council sees some shake-ups moving into the general

Cont:

I just went down and voted.

I also didn't vote for the GOP or Democratic candidates for Senate and House.  The Democrats stand no chance at either office, and they keep nominating candidates too far on the progressive scale.  The GOP Senator up for reelection is shamelessly supporting Trump even though its highly unlikely he really agrees with him on much, which makes it all the worse. The House candidate up for reelection seems to have fully adopted the populist viewpoint. 

I'm a conservative.  I wrote a couple of actual conservatives in.

I voted for the measure to allow the state constitution to be amended to add a new category for residential property, even though I'm very unsure about it. And I voted for all the city optional tax measures.

The whole time I was there some ancient man with a MAGA hat was wondering around ambushing people waiting in line with his far right populist views.  He really hit some poor coal miner hard who clearly just wanted to be left alone to vote.

One of his points was that the United States didn't invent transgenderism.  Somehow, in his mind, this assertion was a reason to vote for Trump.

Cont:

It doesn’t cost 60,000 bucks to bury a fucking Mexican!  Don’t pay it!

Trump's reaction, reportedly, to a bill received from the family of  Pvt. Vanessa Guillén after he had offered to pay funeral expenses.

Why can’t you be like the German generals?

Trump to John Kelly in showing frustration about their independence. Trump was apparently unaware of the July 20 plot, according to Kelly, and not aware that Erwin Rommel killed himself. 

Last edition:

The 2024 Election, Part XXV. The GOP yells "get off my lawn" edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2024 Election, American Solidarity Party, Democratic Party, Donald Trump, Immigration, J. D. Vance, Kamala Harris, Mental Health, Politics, Pope Francis, Populism, Republican Party

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus and the 2025 and 2026 Legislatures. Some things to keep in mind.

 The 2025 Legislature is a general session, not a budget session The budget won't be considered.  Only conventional legislation will be.

The bills that make it to the committees after November 4 are those, to a fairly significant degree, that are being advanced now. That means that a full bore populist agenda won't be considered in 2025.  A partial one will be, but the populist party that claims to be conservative, but which isn't, and which claims to be Republican, but which isn't really, by traditional standards, won't be calling all the tunes.

That leaves it ample room to be disruptive and to complain, which it excels at.  The problem is, for it, is that people will conceive of it as being "in power".  It won't pass all of its agenda, maybe any of iit, and will have to explain why it couldn't.

The Senate and the Governor will be who it blames.

The 2026 legislature will be a budget session, and that's where the rubber will really meet the road.  At least in the past, WFC members have backed wiping out property taxes (a moronic idea) and cutting the state's budget by 30% (another moronic idea).

That would wipe out much of the funding for education and decimate the primary schools, the University of Wyoming and the community colleges, some of which I'd guess will not survive.  When UW starts to teeter, which it'll start too soon, second glances will really commence.

"What do you mean that we're going to Division l700 F in football?"

What'll also start to be impaired is all the emergency funding and the highway funding.  We'll rely, ironically, very heavily on the Federal Government for that which, if it takes notice, may very well require the state to get its tax act together.  

Frankly, it'll be a disaster for the state.

I'd like to be more optimistic about 2026, but I really can't.  The Freedom Caucus won't get everything it wants, but it'll damage things enormously.  Maybe enough that the intellectual poverty of much of its positions will become exposed and we can hope for a better 2026 set of results.

Odds

A prediction, or rather an estimate based on odds.

I think there's a 55% chance that Donald Trump will not be the Republican candidate by November, or even by mid October.

No, I don't think that some random wacko is going to assassinate him.  

Rather, I'm going back to what I always thought, that one of the two candidates would depart due to the impact of time and mortality, and add to it.

On mortality, Trump really doesn't look well, when you see him as he actually looks, which is rarely.  Most of the time we see him in a baggy blue suit with his strange orange spray on tan and back comb over in evidence, a look we're so used to that we have come to regard it as normal, which it is not.  But if you see him golfing, which we do occasionally, you see him as he really is. A fat old pasty man.  He looks his age and doesn't look great.  If a guy looking like that died tomorrow, you wouldn't be surprised.

Added to that, however, is the growing evidence of mental decline.

Trump is under an enormous amount of stress.  If you've ever been familiar with somebody entering dementia, routine can keep them going for a long time.  Trump has had a surprisingly consistent routine since 2020.  The election was stolen has been his mantra.  Joe Biden is a crook and the worst President of all time.  He repeats it over and over, and he still is.

Now, however, Biden has mounted up and is fading into the sunset.  Trump, in turn, has entered the part of the map labeled "here there be dragons" and doesn't know where he is. It's showing in his behavior, which has become increasingly odd.

Indeed, his behavior is now so odd we're completely acclimated to it and pay it little regard.  In more or less controlled scripted moments, which seem to occur during the day time, he delivers a routine rambling speech, often with a flat affect.  He tends to go badly off script into the bizarre.  In interviews he can go way off script.

When he does, odd things show up again and again.  He's really smart, he tells us. . . a lot.  He draws big crowds, bigger than his opponents. . . 

It's weird.

At night, now, he seems to have taken to Twitter and the tweets are often really weird.

I'm not a psychiatrist but it looks to me like the stress an anxiety of the race are getting to him, and organically.

Hence my added prediction.  I don't think this nearly 80 year old who has avoided exercise his entire life can keep this up.  It'll kill him, or it'll render his mid mush to the point it can't be ignored.

And it'll happen before the end of October.

I'm not saying any of this, I'd note, as some sort of wish.  I've seen more than my share of death, and I've seen dementia.  We all die, but dementia isn't something we all endure and I don't wish that on anyone.

The 2024 Election, Part XX. The Debate Edition

 

June 27, 2024

So, tonight (9:00 p.m. Eastern), the two ancient contestants in what both parties insist is a "binary choice" square off in what will be the only debate of the 2024 Presidential Election.

Trump, who has a habit of going weirdly off script in meandering monologues, has been trying to downplay the results ahead of time, after having spent months claiming that Biden is cognitively impaired.  In reality, Biden's always made odd speech gaffs, but Trump, who in his younger days did not, now makes them frequently, suggesting that the impacts of age are catching up with him.  Both men are the same age chronologically, for all practical purposes, but Biden is obviously more physically fit than Trump, who doesn't believe in exercise.

It is, of course, not a binary contest.  You can vote for somebody else.

Do you intend to watch the debate?

So, who all do we have right now?

Presidential Election:

Democratic Ticket:  

Biden/Harris, incumbents.

Republican Ticket:  

Trump/Unknown.

American Solidarity Party:¹   

Sonski/Onak

Libertarian Party:²

Oliver/terMaat

Reform Party:³

Robert F. Kennedy, Jr (an independent)/Shanahan⁴ 

Green Party:⁵

Jill Stein/Unknown

Green Party of Alaska:⁶ 

Sherman/BluBear

Constitution Party:⁷  

Terry/Broden

Constitution Party of Utah and Nevada: 

Skousen/Combs

Party for Socialism and Liberation:⁸

De la Cruz/Garcia

Approval Voting Party: 

Huber/Denault

Prohibition Party:⁹

Wood/Pietrowski

Independent:  

West/Abdullah

Quite a few third parties, we'd note.  Have you considered any of them?

Wyoming Senate Race:

Democratic Contest:

Scott Morrow.

GOP Contest:

John Barrasso, incumbent

Reid Rasner

John Hotz.

Wyoming House Race:

Democratic Contest:

Kyle Cameron

GOP Contest:

Harriet Hageman, incumbent.

Steve Helling

Constitution Party:  

Jeff Haggit

June 28, 2024

I only watched about 30 minutes of it and could no longer stand it.

There's really no denying at this point that Biden's age makes him unfit to be President.  It's not that Trump made sense, Trump's performance demonstrated that he's an unmitigated liar and constitutionally unfit for office.

Rather, the supposed binary system that Americans have bought off on means that, for most people, the choice, because they refuse to imagine another one, will between somebody whose age has caught up with him vs. somebody who doesn't have a single positive political attribute and who is a danger to democracy.

Some, like Nate Silver, and he's far from being alone, are calling for Biden to drop out of the race.  If he does not, it will be to his everlasting shame.  The real question is not if he should drop out, but when he should drop out.

And who, in that case, might replace him.

Joe Manchin of West Virginia.  A possibility?

The other, and vital question, is how American democracy reached this state.  These two choices are the worst in American history and most people don't want them (which again means, they shouldn't vote for either of them).  If the country survives this election, something has to change, beyond that which will change simply because of who is elected.   The system is not functioning to produce two such abysmal choices.

Almost missed, so far, as a Wyoming story, but sort of an interesting aspect of the warp and woof of our times, a Hageman staffer has been forced to resign, in this case, an intern.

A news story by "The Laramie Reporter" reveals that the intern had connections, at least in the form of social media likes, with the extreme right. The same figure has been a rising, albeit young, figure in the populist far right at UW and is on the student senate.

The entire matter is interesting in that it reveals the extent to which populism in the US right now trends highly towards the anti-democratic. The intern was found to have liked racist posts on social media, and to also have outright stated his opposition to democracy at least once.  He also seems to have followed Francoist, which is stunningly bizarre.  This seems to have come out of the same figure being a Christian Nationalist, which shows a really dark side of the National Conservative movement, but perhaps one that is closer to the surface than many people care to admit.

He lost his position, or resigned, the very day the blog broke the story.

June 29, 2024

To Serve His Country, President Biden Should Leave the Race

June 28, 2024

The New York Times.

The Times is absolutely correct, which doesn't mean it will occur.  The stunning level of refusal to accept reality will keep it from occurring.

Establishment Democrats like Robert Reich who ignored the repeated calls for Biden not to run in the first place failed to address the deer in the headlights appearance of Biden and the obvious age related mental decline following the debate (Reich may be addressing it in his entry of today).  "It's only one bad day" seems to be the theme, with those commenters forgetting the truism expressed by Janis Joplin "that it's all only one f***** day man".  

The bolt is shot.  Some Democrats who were to vote for Biden will now not vote at all, or go to third parties.  Republicans on the fence will in fact fold back into Trump.  Wavering independents will fall towards him, or fall towards not voting at all.

The reality is that Biden needs to step aside in the race. The other reality is, he won't.

Biden will keep running, and Trump will win in the fall.

Footnotes:

1. The American Solidarity Party is a Christian Democratic party that's centrist in nature, which should not be confused with Christian Nationalism, which it would generally be in opposition to.

2.  For some time the third-largest party in the US, the Libertarian Party has seemingly fallen into hard times as libertarian ideas have been co opted by some elements of the Republican Party, which ironically in its populist mode of present, it's also radically opposed to, but doesn't realize it.

3.  A number of parties have had the "reform" label for at least a couple of decades. This party is generally centrist in nature.

4.  Kennedy has the Reform Party's nomination, but isn't running from it.  He's an independent.

5. The environmental party.

6. I have no idea why Alaska's Green Party has separated from the main Green Party, but it certainly has no chance of electing a President.

7.  The Constitution Party is a populist party and is where the "Freedom Caucus" people actually belong.

8.  A radical left wing party.

9.  A really old party, it was at one time a significant one but has waned since the repeal of prohibition.

June 30, 2024

Predictably, there's a lot of Democratic true believer "nothing to see here" type of comments regarding President Biden and the recent debates, maintaining nothing whatsoever will happen in regard to his poor performance.

Not likely.

I'm reminded of Monty Python's classic scene of King Arthur confronting the Black Knight.

"Just a flesh wound".

July 2, 2024

The post election reaction on the Democratic side has been interesting, and unfortunately a bit predictable.

The closer a commenter is to the Biden Presidency, either officially or emotionally, the more likely the comments are that the debate just didn't matter.

It did.

As things distance out, that is recognized.  The New York Times, Maureen Doud, The Atlanta Journal Constitution, and others, have all asked Biden to drop out.  He should, but the voices he's now hearing, from his family, and from inside Democrats, are urging him to stay in the race. Those are the voices that he's going to listen to.

And that's what will reelect Donald Trump in the Fall.

It's not too late to pick a new Democrat.  It's not the case that only Joe Biden can beat Trump.  Indeed, people thought Biden was going to be a one-term President in the first place, and didn't want him to run again.  Nobody likes the thought of Harris being the President when Biden dies.

Of course, what's going on is emblematic of the Democratic Party itself.  It's not true that "only Biden" can beat Trump, but probably only Biden can embrace the full slate of the Democratic left's agenda, somewhat, and still have a chance at beating Trump. Any other Democrat who had a chance would have to run much more from the center.  Ironically, that would also mean that such a candidate would have a much better chance of winning overall.  But the far left of the Democratic Party, like the far right of the Republican Party, is no compromise in nature.

Time remains, but it won't be taken advantage of.  The Democratic Party will simply hand the election to Trump, and more than that, may very well hand the Senate to the GOP as well.

Cont:

A party of Democratic governors is going to meet with Biden regarding his staying in the race, or gettin out.

Congressman Lloyd Doggett has called for him to get out.

Manchin was going to announce that he wanted Biden to back out on one of the Sunday news shows, but was talked out of it.

Democrats who are begging to realize that he might get out, are rallying around the worst possible option for his replacement, Kamala Harris.

July 3, 2024

Push To Ditch Ballot Machines For Hand Counts In Wyoming Gaining Steam

Oh shoot, why not just have a ballot initiative requiring us to vote by raising our hands after we walked to the polls, so we can get as antiquated as possible.

July 4, 2024

President Biden told staffers he's staying in the race. At the same time, support for him to do so is rapidly evaporating in the Democratic Party, with even Jim Clyburn suggesting that he should consider dropping out.  It was Clyburn's supportin 2024 which secured South Carolina for Biden.

Meanwhile, Anne Applebaum has published an article in The Atlantic urging Democrats to pick a new candidate, and noting that the British manage to hold thier entire election in a six week cycle. The French, whom she doesn't cite, are doing it even more quickly than that.

Newly released grand jury material shows that Trump’s name appears multiple times on Jeffrey Epstein’s message logs and seven times Epstein’s private jet flight logs, that Epstein flew on Trump’s jet with a young girl of indeterminate age and that girls who Epstein trafficked worked at Mar-A-Lago.  A girl that Epstein trafficked mentioned visiting Trump’s casino in a recently released deposition transcript.

A Jane Doe witness at Ghislane Maxwell's trial stated that she was introduced to Trump by Epstein when she was 14 years old.

This at least raises a set of questions, if nothing else, what did Trump know about Epstein?

Finally, barbequed dog?

July 5, 2024

Joining the rising number of press outlets calling for Biden to withdraw is the influential British magazine, The Economist:

Why Biden must withdraw (economist.com)

cont:

Now that it appears increasingly likely that Joe Biden will drop out (contrary to my expectations), and may even be reaching the inevitable stage, Trump is increasingly off his game.  Used to insulting his opponents, now that he doesn't know who his opponent is, he doesn't seem to know what to do.  An insult game only works if you visably have somebody to insult.  Without that, it might seem that he stands for nothing much.  He's managed some weak insults against VP Harris, but frankly it's unlikely that she'd be the Democratic nominee.

Today, on things he stands for, he eeked out this:

So he's disavowing those who are his hardcore allies and who have been getting in front of him as it now appears that Project 2025, in the hands of a capable opponent, might be a real liability. But this is a week denial.

July 6, 2024

Biden, bucking the tide against him, and refusing to acknowledge reality, has indicated he will not step down in an interview with George Stephanopoulos.

All along, the American public has not wanted these two ancient candidates, and yet they will not yield to the public desires.  Biden isn't yielding to reality at this point.

July 8, 2024

I listed to the This Week interview of President Biden.  From the audio, I came away more convinced than ever that Biden needs to step aside in the election  It left me, at least, with no confidence whatsoever.

In an odd turn of events, MAGA members are fuming over the results of the French Election:

France

In an amazing one week long rally, the French left and Macron's Ensemble stages a comeback with the left wing NFP now having the majority of seats in the French Assembly and Ensemble the second largest.  

None of the parties have enough seats to form a government, and nobody is certain what will occur.  If a government is to be formed, it will have to be a coalition government.

July 8, 2024.

Some are even accusing the French left of cheating in the election, with quite a few taking the same line as Le Pen supporters and claiming the alliance of French left wing parties "unnatural".

July 9, 2024

President Biden wrote a lengthy letter to Democratic leaders on his reamining in the race.

Related threads:

Why can't Democrats get a clue?

I ran this back in February, at which time it was already obvious that Joe Biden needed to go:

Lex Anteinternet: Why isn't anyone suggesting that Tammy Duckworth r...: 

Why isn't anyone suggesting that Tammy Duckworth replace Joe Biden on the Democratic ticket?

I'm not endorsing Duckworth, and I'm sure she has left of center opinions that I have problems with, but there's no earthly way that a guy with contempt for veterans and whose views toward women appears rather, well whatever, could handle a smart, female combat veteran, like Tammy Duckworth.

Fifty-five years old, lost her legs in combat, Asian American, PhD, and a mother.  She's the anti-Elise Stefanik.

Trump and his supporters couldn't handle her, and Trump would insult every single veteran, Asian American and woman in the country within 12 hours.

Curious.

Right now, the stunning level of density in thought in the Democratic Party is really on display.  Joe Biden is as done as dinner in this election.  If the Democrats are to beat Trump, they need to shuffle him out the door before the primary.  The line that nothing happened at the debate, or that he's just fine, or that it was only one bad day is frankly absurd.

He needs to drop out of the race.

In no way shape or form does Kamala Harris need to replace him.

Harris grates on the nerves of a lot of non Democrats, and just about everyone in the middle of the country. She has a grating voice and comes across as snarky.  She'll do worse, or at least no better than Biden would have. She needs to go too.

The Democrats have some strong potential younger candidates. Tammy Duckworth is the one that can't be beat.  She's much younger than the geezer running on both sides. 

And she's everything Trump has a problem with. She's a woman. She's not "white".  She's lost a leg, and in combat at that.

Trump would have a difficult time not being a complete asshole, and insult Asians, women, veterans, and the disabled.

Shoot, Duckworth is a mother. 

Harris is a snarky sounding lawyer.  He could make snide remarks about her all day, and a lot of people would secretly laugh at them.

A Duckworth/Manchin ticket would be unbeatable.  A Duckworth/Klobachar ticket probably would be.

I'd still vote for the American Solidarity Party candidates, as I have deep problems with the Democratic embrace of such things as abortion.  But the "oh, nothing is wrong with Biden" and "let's nominate the second most worst candidate" thinking of the Democrats is simply amazing.

Democrats don't lose elections.  They throw them away.

Blog Mirror: Joe Biden should drop out.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2024 Election, Blog Mirror, Joseph Biden, Personalities

Last prior edition:

The 2024 Election, Part XIX. The Clerks say "M'eh" edition.

Labels: 2020s, 2024, 2024 Election, flap de jour, Natrona County Wyoming, Politics, Taxes, Wyoming, Wyoming (Natrona County)

Bookends

I probably should have guessed, but I didn't.

I'd never met him before, and couldn't even place him in the set of people related to people I knew.  He was, or is rather, the grandson of a rancher I've known for eons, but I'd never seen him at a rural gathering.  He was dressed in a rural fashion, with the clothes natural to him, but wearing a ball cap rather than a cowboy hat.  I probably was too.  It was unseasonably cold, I remember that.

He was holding forth boldly on what was wrong on higher education.  All the professors were radical leftist.  

I figured he was probably right out of high school, in part no doubt as I'm a very poor judge of younger ages.  It was silly, so I just ignored him, although I found his speech arrogant.  The sort of speech you hear from somebody who presumes that nobody else has experienced what you have. ¹  I.e., we were a bunch of rural rubes not familiar with the dangerous liberals in higher education.

I figured he'd probably get over it as he moved through education.  

Yes, there are liberals in higher education. Frankly, the more educated a class is, the more likely that it is at least somewhat liberal.  That reflects itself in our current political demographic.  The more higher education a person has, the more likely they are to vote for the Democrats.  It's not universally true, but it's fairly true. And the Republicans, having gone populist, which is by definition a political stream that simply flows the "wisdom of the people", is a pretty shallow stream.  Conservatism isn't, but it's really hard to find right now.

I heard earlier this year that he'd obtained a summer position in D.C. with one of our current public servants there, and thought that figured, given the climate of the times.  Recently, his grandfather told me he'd just taken the LSAT.  

I didn't quite know what to say.  

I didn't have any idea he was that old.  And I didn't realize that was his aspiration.  I asked his progenitor if being a lawyer was his goal, and was informed that it was.  I did stumble around to asking what his undergraduate major was, thinking that some have multiple doors to the future, and some do not.

"Political science".

"Well, he doesn't have any place else to go then".²

Not the most encouraging response, I'm sure.

I've known a few lawyers that were of the populist political thought variety, but very, very few.  Of the few, one is in office right now, but I didn't know that person had that view until that person ran.  One is a nice plaintiff's lawyer who holds those views, but it's not his defining characteristic, like it tends to be with some people, and he's friends with those who don't.  One briefly was in the public eye and has disappeared.

He's going to find that most law professors, if you know their views at all, and most you won't, aren't populists.  Some are probably conservatives, and most are liberals.  A defining characteristic of the Post GI Bill field of law is that it's institutionally left wing.  As I've often noted before, there are in fact liberal jurists, but there really aren't "conservative" jurists in the true sense, in spite of what people like Robert Reich might think.

I suspect politics is the ultimate goal. By the time he's through with law school, and has some practice under his belt, the populist wave will have broken, a conservative politics will have reemerged and liberals will be back in power.³

So I hope that he likes the practice of law, as that's what law school trains you to do.  Not to save the world.  Not to "help people".  Not to provide opportunities for people who "like to argue".⁴ 

I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

Recently, I ran this:

June 25, 2024

An article on Hageman's primary challenger in the GOP:

Democrat-turned-Republican challenges Wyoming’s Harriet Hageman for U.S. House seat

Helling has a less than zero chance of unseating Hageman.  What this item really reminded me of, however, is just how old these candidates are.  Helling is an old lawyer.  His bar admission date is 1981, which would make him about 70.  Hageman's is 1989, which I knew which would make her about 61, old by historical standards although apparently arguably middle-aged now.

Barrasso is 71.  Lummis is 69. John Hotz, who is running against Barrasso, has a bar admission date of 1978 which would make him about three years older than Helling.  Seemingly the only younger candidate in the GOP race this primary is Rasner.

This isn't a comment on any of their politics, but rather their age.  Helling is opposed to nuclear power, a very 1970ish view.  With old people, come old views, quite often, even if they're repackaged as new ones.

Right after I ran it, I went to a hearing where one of the opposing lawyers is approaching 70 and supposedly is getting ready to retire, but doesn't seem to be.  Right after that, I was in a court hearing in which there were two younger lawyers, but a host of ones in their late 60s or well into their 70s.  One of the late 60s ones appeared to be stunned and noted that there was at least 200 years of legal experience in the room.

I was noticing the same thing.

Lawyers have a problem and that's beginning to scare me, not quite yet being of retirement age.  I'm not sure if they don't retire, can't retire, don't think they can retire, or something else.

It's not really good for the profession, I'm sure of that.  While it's a really Un-American thing to say, a field being dominated in some ways by the elderly pushes out the young.  And it's also sad.

It's sad as it's usually the case that younger people have wide, genuine, interests.  Lawyers often, although not always, give a lot of those up early on to build their careers. Then they don't go back to them due to those careers.  By the time they're in their late 50s, some are burnt out husks that have nothing but the law, and others are just, I think, afraid to leave it.

I think that's, in part, why you see lawyers run for office.  Maybe some are like our young firebrand first mentioned in this tread.  But others are finding a refuge from a cul-de-sac.  A lawyer who is nearly 70 should not become a first time office holder, and shouldn't even delude themselves into thinking that's a good idea (or that it's feasible).  They should remind themselves of what interested them when they were in their 20s.  The same is true of office holders in general who are in their 70s, or older.  

Footnotes:

1.  I've often seen this with young veterans and old ones.  Some young veteran will be holding forth, not realizing that the guy listening to him fought at Khe Sanh or the likes.

2.  That wasn't the most politic thing to say, but I was sort of hoping that the answer was "agriculture" or something, that had some more doors out.  

Political science really doesn't.  Maybe teaching.  But if our young protagonist graduates with a law degree and finds himself not in the world of political intrigue making sure that the American version of Viktor Orbán rises to the top, but rather whether his client, the mother of five children by seven men gets one of them to pay child support, which is highly likely, he's going to have no place to go.

3.  Bold prediction, I know, but probably correct.

Right now, I suspect that Donald Trump will in fact win the Presidential election, and the country will be in for a massive period of turmoil.  By midterm, people who supported Trump will be howling with rage about the impact of tariffs and the like and demanding that something be done.  The correction will come in 2028, but by that time much of the damage, or resetting or whatever, will have been done.  The incoming 2028 Democratic regime will set the needle more back to the center.

4.  Being good at arguing, in a Socratic sense, makes you a good debator or speaker.  Liking to argue, however, just makes you an asshole.

Observations on a murder.

Earlier this week Robert Maher Jr., age 14, was murdered by Dominique Antonio Richard Harris, born in 2008, and Jarreth Joseflee Sabastian Plunkett, born in 2009.  The killing seems to have been planned for several days prior to the assault in the Eastridge Mall that lead to Maher's death.  Plunkett did the actual killing, with Harris slamming Maher to the ground beforehand.  

The technical origin of the fight was that Maher had called Plunkett and Harris "freaks" during Spring Break (something that didn't exist when I was in school) and that enraged the two of them.  He called them that has they went into a porta potty at a local park together, which is odd, but insulting them wasn't very smart.  This raises the specter of the Matthew Shepherd killing, which had elements which never really seemed to be accurately reported.  More likely, however, in the exaggerated juvenile maleness of the rootless and (I'll bet) fatherless mid teenage boy, that was an implied insult that had to be addressed.

Maher never seems to have gotten in a single punch in the assault.  The two assailants, who had stolen their weapons along with Red Bulls and candy that day, acted in such a fashion that, whether Harris intended it or not, gave Plunkett the opportunity to viciously knife him.

There's no reason here, we'd note, to use the classic "alleged" assault language. The two teenage boys killed the third. They're going to be tried as adults. They ought o be put away, forever.

But what else does this event tell us?

Casper's a rough town.

One thing that I saw soon after the murder was a comment by somebody on Facebook noting how they have moved from New Mexico, where their son had been knifed in a fight, to Casper under the belief that this was a quite safe town.

In another context, we've already spoken about immigrants into the state being delusional about it, and this is one such instance. Casper has never been a nice town.

Casper was founded in 1887, and it was violent from day one to some degree.  It was, however, originally a rial stop in cattle company, although it always had its eye on oil.  It was the jumping off spot for the invaders in the Johnson County War, which at least gives it a bit of a footnote in that violent event.  Casper's first murder occured on Saturday, September 20, 1890, when bartender John Conway shot and killed unarmed A. J. Tidwell, an FL Cattle Company cowboy in Lou Polk's dance house, following a round of fisticuffs.  The blood has been flowing ever since.

Casper really took a turn towards the wild side of life starting in World War One.  1917, as we've addressed here before, is when the Great War Oil boom really took off, and with it came a lot of men and a lot of vice. One of the things that created was Casper's infamous Sandbar district, in which prostitution was carried out openly and prohibition flaunted.  Repeated efforts to close it down utterly failed, until finally a 1970s vintage urban renewal project (yikes, the government taking a hand!") destroyed it.

With the booze and the prostitutes came murders (and no doubt disease) but it went on and on.  By and large, however, as odd as it may seem, people just acclimated themselves to it.  You got used to a town having a red-light district, and as there were some legitimate businesses in it, you'd go into it for legitimate reasons.  As a boy, we walked into the Sandbar in the early 70s to go to the War Surplus Store, which nobody seemed to think was a big deal. The America and Rialto movie theaters were just yards from the district, and the district's bars lapped up out of it into downtown Casper, with some of them being places were to walk around, rather than past, if at all possible.

Casper had quasi ethnic gangs when I was young, and at least in the schools that I attended, that was a factor of attending them.  You were careful about it.  It was impossible to get through junior high and high school without having been in a fight.  Most fights were hand to hand, but a teacher was knifed when I was in junior high breaking up a knife fight, so not all of them were.  In high school we all carried pocket knives and none of us were supposed to.  They were for protection.  While I was in high school, one of our classmates, who had been held back more than once, was killed outside a bar in a shooting, the result of a fight he provoked, which resulted in an ethnic riot at the school in which shots were fired.  The father of one of our classmates was killed by our classmate after he turned his molesting attention on her sister, having molested her for years.  Neither of these crimes resulted in prosecution.

The point is, for those who are shocked by the arrival of violence in Casper. . .well, it's been here since 1890.

The abandoned males

I keep waiting to hear the circumstances of the murderers' family lives and have not read any yet.  I'm sure it'll come out as the story advances.  While It's dangerous to speculate, there are reasons to suspect a few things, one being the killers likely had no fathers in the picture.   We're going to hear at some point that they were raised by their mothers, or in irregular homes.  I could of course be wrong, but I'll bet not.

Fatherless males are a major societal problem.  Fatherless males that are raised in an environment of sexual license are an even bigger problem.  Indeed, they're often fatherless for that reason in the first place, and they'll go on to spawn further fatherless children, who grow up in poverty and with little societal direction.  A minority will find that structure in the Old Law, the law before the law, which reaches back to tribalism in the extreme.  It's in the DNA.

The Old Law demanded death for transgressors too, something modern society has moved away from in large measure.  I've already heard it suggested that Harris and Plunkett should receive death, but due to their ages, I think that not very likely.  It'd be ill-advised, no matter what.  But tribalism spawns more tribalism.  The real personalities are lost of both the assailants and the victims.

119th Congress, Part 2.

 

February 4, 2024

The House of Representatives will move forward with a  $17.6 billion bill this week that provides military aid to Israel and replenishes U.S. weapons, but leaves out more help for Ukraine.

It will not pass the Senate. 

The Senate apparently left the House out of its efforts to negotiate on these topics, which shows the level of dissention between the two bodies.

Ukraine has become an increasingly hot topic in the House, which is strongly influenced by Trump, who is a Putin fan.

February 5, 2024

Mexican Border Crisis

On the weekend shows, a preview of the extensive bipartisan Senate border bill was featured.  Mike Johnson is pretty clearly going to oppose it as he has orders from his puppet master. A Republican Senator threatened to push Johnson into a vote over his speakership, which apparently there had been a backdoor deal with Democratic Senators to try to prevent when he was nominated.  This was based on the assertion that he'd broken his promises in that closed door meeting.

Governor Kristi Noem was banned from the Pine Ridge Reservation for declaring she wants to send razor wire and National Guardsmen to the Texas border.

February 6, 2024

Yesterday Mitch McConnell urged Republicans to vote for the Senate bill then in a closed door meeting urged them to vote against it.

President Biden threatened to veto the House's stand-alone aid package to Israel.

Cont:

Matt Gaetz and Elise Stephanik have co-sponsored a resolution that Donald Trump did not engage in insurrection or rebellion against the United States on January 6, something that clear is an attempt to address the 14th Amendment in that insurrection may be excused under it.

Having said that, a resolution that it didn't occur will not excuse it, and this will not get through the Senate.

Cont: 

The House failed to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas. All the Democrats voted against this, and the following Republicans retained their integrity on this matter; Rep. Tom McClintock (CA-05), Rep. Ken Buck (CO-04),  and Rep. Mike Gallagher (WI-08). Rep. Blake Moore (UT-01) also voted no, but on procedural grounds to that this may be brought back up again, even though it should not.

Look for all four, including Moore, to suffer the same fate as Liz Cheney.

February 14, 2024

Yesterday the House managed to get the Big Top in order and the GOP was able to impeach Mayorkas.

This now goes to the Senate, which will have to deal with it, but he'll retain his job.

Wyoming's Congressman Harriet Hageman will be a Senate Trial Manager for the impeachment.

Impeachments, which were rare up until Bill Clinton was wrongfully impeached, were once rare.  Now they're becoming extremely common, a sign of the collapse of American government.

The Senate voted aid for Ukraine. Wyoming's Senator John Barrasso voted against it, then came out with a statement noting his strong support for Ukraine.  Clearly he's worried about the strong MAGA base in Wyoming.

February 26, 2025

Russo Ukrainian War

Two separate discharge petitions to bring funding for Ukraine are being introduced into the House on different bills, one being the bill that has already passed the Senate.  There seems to be optimism that one of them, that being the unique House bill in particular, will pass in this end run around politically castrated Trump eunuch, Mike Johnson.

February 28, 2024

One of life’s most underappreciated talents is to know when it’s time to move on to life’s next chapter, so I stand before you today ... to say that this will be my last term as Republican leader of the Senate.

Mitch McConnell, earlier today.

Personally, I suspect the almost certain election of Trump this Fall, and the descent of the GOP into a nativist, isolationist, Evangelist, Populist Party had a lot to do with this.

This is, frankly, not a good development at all.

March 1, 2024

The House passed a stopgap funding bill yesterday.

March 10, 2024

President Biden has signed the bill.

March 14, 2024

The House of Representatives took passed a bill which might ban TikTok due to its Chinese ownership and fears that it exploits information for the benefit of the PRC.

Oh my, what will over endowed teens and twenty-something girls now do?

I have to admit that I find it almost impossible to care about this, which in turn contributes to my cynicism.  I don't know if the Chinese are mining vast amounts of data from TikTok  and frnakly I'm in favor of banning the vast amount of the Internet that's hypersexualized porn of some sort in any event. But that's not why it's being banned.  I can't help suspecting that its being banned as this is a feel good moment for a body that's done almost nothing.

Address the border?  Nope.

Address Russian aggression in Ukraine?  Nyet.

Let's ban TikTok instead.

Well, if I was there, I'd probably vote to ban it too.  It's trash.  I just find it amusing that this, and seemingly this alone, is the one thing they seem to be able to do.

March 21, 2024

Republican Congressmen have introduced a bill, the details of which I have not yet learned, to raise Social Security retirement age to 69.

Yikes.

This follows a series of comments by Republican figures recently, at first taken to have been made in a gadfly like fashion, that taking retirement is not a proper thing to be doing in the first place.

The Social Security System does need to be immediately addressed, and pushing the age limit up would help keep it funded, but there are other ways to do that and at some point it becomes manifestly unfair as well as a retardant on the economy.  We already are enduring a gerontocracy in the US, and this would make it worse. 

March 22, 2024

Wisconsin Rep. Mike Gallagher is leaving the House of Representatives next month, dropping the GOP majority in the House down to one vote.  Meanwhile, Marjorie Taylor Greene has filed a motion to remove Johnson, but it's a motion that doesn't have to be taken up.

The chances of the Republicans losing the House before November are now about 50/50, and with each example of Republican dysfunction, the corpse of the dead GOP starts to smell more and more.  While nobody is yet predicting it (I'm about to), the Democrats will take the House and the Senate in the Fall.

March 23, 2024

The Senate passed the budget bill so the government will avoid shutting down, again.  This just before they went home on recess, again.

Last prior edition:

119th Congress, Part 1.

The Next Trump Administration, Part 2. The Insurrection Act.

Lex Anteinternet: The Next Trump Administration, Part 1.: 

The Next Trump Administration, Part 1.

Trump's promises:

Trump on his actions upon becoming President.

Like Mein Kampf, this should be taken seriously.

And like that, here's something extremely disturbing to note. Trump has made clear indications that he'll invoke the Insurrection Act.  One of his primary advisors, Russell Vought, Trump’s former Office of Management and Budget Director, and a Christian Nationalist, has been suggesting he should do so as soon as he takes office.

Trump has indicated he'd be dictator "for just one day".  Well, that first day, if Vought has his way, the Insurrection Act would be invoked to stop protests. 

It provides:

10 U.S.C. §§ 331-335

Sec. 331. Federal aid for State governments

Whenever there is an insurrections in any State against its government, the President may, upon the request of its legislature or of its governor if the legislature cannot be convened, call into Federal service such of the militia of the other States, in the number requested by that State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to suppress the insurrection.

Sec. 332. Use of militia and armed forces to enforce Federal authority

Whenever the President considers that unlawful obstructions, combinations, or assemblages, or rebellion against the authority of the United States, make it impracticable to enforce the laws of the United States in any State by the ordinary course of judicial proceedings, he may call into Federal service such of the militia of any State, and use such of the armed forces, as he considers necessary to enforce those laws or to suppress the rebellion.

Sec. 333. Interference with State and Federal law

The President, by using the militia or the armed forces, or both, or by any other means, shall take such measures as he considers necessary to suppress, in a State, any insurrection, domestic violence, unlawful combination, or conspiracy, if it--

(1) so hinders the execution of the laws of that State, and of the United States within the State, that any part or class of its people is deprived of a right, privilege, immunity, or protection named in the Constitution and secured by law, and the constituted authorities of that State are unable, fail, or refuse to protect that right, privilege, or immunity, or to give that protection; or

(2) opposes or obstructs the execution of the laws of the United States or impedes the course of justice under those laws.

In any situation covered by clause (1), the State shall be considered to have denied the equal protection of the laws secured by the Constitution.

Sec. 334. Proclamation to disperse

Whenever the President considers it necessary to use the militia or the armed forces under this chapter, he shall, by proclamation, immediately order the insurgents or those obstructing the enforcement of the laws to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time.

Sec. 335. Guam and Virgin Islands included as “State”

For purposes of this chapter, the term "State" includes Guam and the Virgin Islands. 

It's generally held there's no recourse to the Courts, although this would surely spark litigation, probably by Congressmen amongst others.

The Insurrection Act is one of the badly drafted Reconstruction Era statutes that the country should dump entirely.  There's next to no reason to ever deploy military force inside the US borders in peacetime. But my prediction is Trump will do it.

He'll do it to deploy Federal troops to the border. He'll do it to hit drug cartel targets in Mexico.  He'll do it to suppress protests in the U.S. and he'll do it to seize voting devices where the results aren't what he wants, and beyond that.

And that will make him a type of dictator, and not just for one day.