You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.
Matthew, Chapter 24.
GBU-57A/B MOP
You can't say civilization don't advance... in every war they kill you in a new way.
Will Rogers.
We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars that we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into.
Donald Trump.
We find ourselves with another predictive entry.
Yesterday, June 17, was an extremely odd day. Trump left the G7 meeting austensibly to deal with the war between Israel and Iran, but notably before the topic of the Russian invasion of Ukraine came up.
Trump, of course, had promised to end the war between Ukraine and Russia upon being nominated to the Oval Office.
He lied.
Since that time, he's been an enthusiastic supporter if Israel's ongoing war in Gaza and, as of yesterday, was indicating that the US saved the life of Iran's Supreme Leader, but the US may decide to kill the de facto Iranian head of state itself, something that nations generally do not do and which frankly would make Trump fair game in the eyes of Iranian radicals. Trump might finally get a first hand taste of being the enemy the way he did not in the 1960s.
Threatening to murder, and that's exactly what it would be, the head of a state of a foreign country is moronic, as well as deeply immoral.
It appears that Mike Huckabee, whom Trump stupidly appointed as the American Ambassador to Israel, has Trump's ear, which is dangerous. Huckabee sent a weird missive to Trump yesterday or the day before which Trump praised and reposted. Huckabee is a Christian Zionist/Millennialist Restorationist who seeks to help bring about the Second Coming by advancing the cause of Israel. A minority branch of Protestantism, which itself is a minority of Christians, there's likely nothing Israel could do that Huckabee won't back. He's basically backing the United States entering the war against Iran.
The reason that Israel would want that to occur is depicted above. Israel is attempting to end the Iranian nuclear program, and perhaps achieve much more, from the air. By now it's probably clear that it can't do that without use of a GBU-57A/B MOP, assuming that could even do it. The GBU-57A/B MOP is the worlds' largest deep penetration bunker buster bomb, and it might, but only might, be able to destroy Iran's underground nuclear facilities.
Only one airplane in the world right now can carry the GBU-57A/B MOP, that being the B-2 bomber. The B-52 can also carry then, but none are currently set up to do so. The B-2 can carry two.
And it's highly probable that they've asked the US to deploy them for this purpose.
And fairly probable the US will do so.
June 18, 2025
Israel v. Iran
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — Israel claimed Tuesday to have killed a top Iranian general as it traded more strikes with its longtime foe, and U.S. President Donald Trump warned residents of Tehran to evacuate while demanding that Iran surrender without conditions.
From the AP.
On the above, there's a pretty good chance that Trump feels that acting like he's going to attack Iran is going to convince Iran to enter some sort of bargain. Iran is pretty hard to intimidate.
Also, there's a good chance that Trump will TACO the moment and suddenly declare he achieved something, once he thinks over the consequences of attacking Iran, or once clearer heads than Mike Huckabee's get to him. Not that I want him to attack Iran. I think that would be stupid.
If the latter occurs, Trump's loyal fans will claim that he was the master negotiator, but I doubt Israel will quit pounding Iran, and that Iran will quit responding. Israel has the upper hand right now, but it's extremely difficult to win a war only through the air, and Israel has no ability to deploy ground forces against Iran. For that matter, Iran's neighbors likely wouldn't tolerate that. It's an impossibility, however. Air wars degrade over time as targets reduce or become less vulnerable, and Israel is unlikely to be able to protect itself from missile strikes indefinitely.
June 19, 2025
Israel v. Iran
Iran hit Israel with a ballistic missile carrying a cluster munition warhead hitting, amongst other things the Soroka Medical Center in Be’er Sheva.
Donald Trump is weirdly claiming that he'll take two weeks to decide if the US will enter the war, which a competent leader would not announce, even if contemplating it.
Legally entering the war would require a Declaration of War, which won't be occurring and a bare minimum the War Powers Act should come into play.
June 22, 2025
The United States and Israel v Iran
The US hit Iranian nuclear targets yesterday. Trump's speech on the same:
Thank you very much.
A short time ago, the U.S. military carried out massive, precision strikes on the three key nuclear facilities in the Iranian regime. Fordo, Natanz and Esfahan. Everybody heard those names for years as they built this horribly destructive enterprise.
Our objective was the destruction of Iran's nuclear enrichment capacity and a stop to the nuclear threat posed by the world's number one state sponsor of terror.
Tonight, I can report to the world that the strikes were a spectacular military success. Iran's key nuclear enrichment facilities have been completely and totally obliterated. Iran, the bully of the Middle East, must now make peace. If they do not. Future attacks would be far greater and a lot easier.
For 40 years, Iran has been saying. Death to America, death to Israel. They have been killing our people, blowing off their arms, blowing off their legs, with roadside bombs. That was their specialty. We lost over 1,000 people and hundreds of thousands throughout the Middle East, and around the world have died as a direct result of their hate in particular. So many were killed by their general, Qassim Soleimani. I decided a long time ago that I would not let this happen. It will not continue.
I want to thank and congratulate Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. We worked as a team like perhaps no team has ever worked before, and we've gone a long way to erasing this horrible threat to Israel. I want to thank the Israeli military for the wonderful job they've done. And most importantly, I want to congratulate the great American patriots who flew those magnificent machines tonight, and all of the United States military on an operation the likes of which the world has not seen in many, many decades.
Hopefully, we will no longer need their services in this capacity. I hope that's so. I also want to congratulate the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Dan 'Razin' Caine, spectacular general, and all of the brilliant military minds involved in this attack.
With all of that being said, this cannot continue. There will be either peace, or there will be tragedy for Iran, far greater than we have witnessed over the last eight days. Remember, there are many targets left. Tonight's was the most difficult of them all, by far, and perhaps the most lethal. But if peace does not come quickly, we will go after those other targets with precision, speed and skill. Most of them can be taken out in a matter of minutes. There's no military in the world that could have done what we did tonight. Not even close. There has never been a military that could do what took place just a little while ago.
And I want to just thank everybody. And, in particular, God. I want to just say, we love you, God, and we love our great military. Protect them. God bless the Middle East. God bless Israel and God bless America. Thank you very much. Thank you.
The legality of this is really questionable, as is the wisdom, and effectiveness, of it. And the development of the US openly taking a part in a Middle Eastern War, started by Israel, on behalf of Israel, is a dangerous development. The US has never done that before.
As war is an extension of politics by other means, and all politics is local:
June 23, 2025
The United States and Israel v Iran
Since the US B-2 missions (which were impressively flown out of Missouri in the longest bombing mission of all time), there have global reactions to the strike, some of which praised it. It's clear that European nations generally support them.
Russia issued a statement in which it condemned them and indicated that now other nations may transfer nuclear weapons to Iran. How much Russia can be trusted in regard to anything it states is a clearly open question, but being concerned about this possibility, particularly as Pakistan is nearby, is perhaps merited. Likewise, being concerned about what rogue state North Korea may do is also warranted.
Iran itself has indicated that it will close the Straits of Hormuz and that it will otherwise retaliate.
The morality of this action is debatable and interesting. It's clearly an act of war with no clear exist strategy based on the hope of Iranian concession. However, the argument can be made that waiting until Iran had a nuclear weapon, which they are clearly working on, would put the world in an untenable position.
That it is an act of war was interestingly noted when a Congressman on This Week said Iran could "sue for peace". You only sue for peace in a declared war, which this is not.
A group of Congressmen have put together a war powers resolution seeking to limit further US action. It's all Democrats save for one Republican. If history is our guide, politically most Americans will support action against Iran, at least at first. If things drag on, they'll be discontented. In the short term condemning the strike is probably a bad political move, but in the long term it might not be. If Iran is not cowed into submission, and perhaps its regime can't afford to be, we'll either have to materially support an ongoing Iranian air war indefinitely or become more involved in it. People repeatedly are noting that there will not be "boots on the ground", and there very likely won't be on a largescale, but on a small scale there may very well be. If Iran closes the Straits of Hormuz the U.S. Navy will have to reopen them, and that will be a major task.
Apparently a cease fire has been agreed to, although there may have been some post agreement fighting.
A ceasefire isn't a peace agreement. What's going on, and what was achieved, are the real questions.
And of course, Trump is acting weird.
And this:
We basically have two countries that have been fighting so long and so hard that they don’t know what the fuck they’re doing.
Donald Trump.
June 24, 2024
United States and Israel v. Iran.
An early assessment holds that Iran's nuclear facilities were not destroyed, only damages, and they're merely set back in the production of an atomic weapon a few months.
Can't say I'm surprised.
So the US attack may have simply reinforced the Iranian desire for a nuclear weapon.
cont:
A report by an expert on NPR Politics holds that there's no way that Iran's nuclear program was destroyed.
July 4, 2024
Russo Ukrainian War
Kyiv is getting pounded by a large scale drone attack.
The US has halted many weapons transfer programs to Ukraine on the basis that the US needs to rebuilt its own arms stockpile.
Yes, the 2024 Election hasn't even occured yet, and the 2026 one is clearly on, at least locally.
What we can tell for sure is that Chuck Gray is running for the office of Governor. He always was. The Secretary of State's office was very clearly a mere stepping stone in that plan, and the plan probably goes on from there. By coming to Wyoming, a state with a low population and a pronounced history of electing out of staters (we nearly have some sort of personality problem in that regard), it was a good bet, particularly when combined with his family money, although it was never a sure bet that he'd make the legislature and on from there. His plan requires, however, or at least he seemingly believes it requires, that he keep his name in the news, which he's worked hard to do, being involved in lawsuits, which is probably unconstitutional on his part, and releasing press releases that are extraordinary for his role, and for the invective language they contain. Mr. Gray has probably used the term "radical leftists" more in his two years of office than all of the prior Wyoming Secretaries of State combined.
This explains something that was otherwise a bit odd that we noticed recently, which was Secretary Gray's appearance in Casper in opposition of something he'd otherwise voted for:
Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows. But how strange, nonetheless still surprises.
Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who rose to that position by pitching to the populist far right, which dominates the politics of the GOP right now, and which appears to be on the verge of bringing the party down nationally, has tacked in the wind in a very surprising direction. He appeared this past week at a meeting in Natrona County to oppose a proposed gravel pit project at the foot of Casper Mountain. He actually pitched for the upset residents in the area to mobilize and take their fight to Cheyenne, stating:
We have a very delicate ecosystem, the fragility up there, the fragility of the flows … the proximity to domestic water uses. All of those things should have led to a distinct treatment by the Office of State Lands, and that did not happen.
I am, frankly, stunned.
I frankly never really expected Mr. Gray to darken visage of the Pole Stripper monument on the east side of Casper's gateway, which you pass by on the road in from Cheyenne again, as he's not from here and doesn't really have a very strong connection to the state, although in fairness that connection would have been to Casper, where he was employed by his father's radio station and where he apparently spent the summers growing up (in an unhappy state of mind, according to one interview of somebody who knew him then). Gray pretty obviously always had a political career in mind and campaigned from the hard populist right from day one, attempting at first to displace a conservative house member unsuccessfully.
We have a post coming up which deals with the nature of populism, and how it in fact isn't conservatism. Gray was part of the populist rise in the GOP, even though his background would more naturally have put him in the conservative camp, not the populist one. But opportunity was found with populists, who now control the GOP state organization. The hallmark of populism, as we'll explore elsewhere, is a belief in the "wisdom of the people", which is its major failing, and why it tends to be heavily anti-scientific and very strongly vested in occupations that people are used to, but which are undergoing massive stress. In Wyoming that's expressed itself with a diehard attitude that nothing is going on with the climate and that fossil fuels will be, must have, and are going to dominate the state's economy forever. The months leading up to the recent legislative session, and the legislative session itself, demonstrated this with Governor Gordon taking criticism for supporting anything to address carbon concerns. Put fairly bluntly, because a large percentage of Wyoming's rank and file workers depend on the oil and gas industry, and things related to it, any questioning on anything tends to be taken as an attack on "the people".
Natrona County has had a gravel supply problem for quite a while and what the potential miner seeks to do here is basically, through the way our economy works, address it. There would be every reason to suspect that all of the state's politicians who ran to the far right would support this, and strongly. But they aren't.
The fact that Gray is not, and is citing environmental concerns, comes as a huge surprise. But as noted, given his background, he's probably considerably more conservative than populist, but has acted as politicians do, and taken aid and comfort where it was offered. Tara Nethercott ran as a conservative and lost for the same office.
But here's the thing.
That gravel is exactly the sort of thing that populists, if they're true to what they maintain they stand for, ought to support. It's good for industry, and the only reason to oppose the mining is that 1) it's in a bad place in terms of the neighbors and 2) legitimate environmental concerns, if there are any. But that's exactly the point. You really can't demand that the old ways carry on, until they're in your backyard.
Truth be known, given their nature, a lot of big environmental concerns are in everyone's backyard right now.
The old GOP would have recognized that nationally, and wouldn't be spending all sorts of time back in DC complaining about electric vehicles. And if people are comfortable with things being destructive elsewhere, they ought to be comfortable with them being destructive right here. If we aren't, we ought to be pretty careful about it everywhere.
There actually is some precedent for this, FWIW. A hallmark of Appalachian populism was the lamenting of what had happened to their region due to coal mining. John Prine's "Paradise" in some ways could be an environmental populist anthem.
Right about the time I noted this, Rod Miller, opinion writer for the Cowboy State Daily, wrote a satiric article on the same thing:
We have no idea, of course, who his opponent will be, unless it's Gordon, who is theoretically term limited out, but we already know from prior litigation that the restraint on his running again is unconstitutional. And Gordon clearly doesn't like Gray, a dislike that's not limited to him by any means. Gordon would have to challenge that in court, however, unless 1) a group of citizens does, and 2) the court ruled they'd have standing.
As voters, they should.
If that happens, I wouldn't be surprised to see Gordon run again, and to be asked to run again. While he was a candidate initially I worried about him, as he was further to the right on public lands issues than any candidate since Geringer, but he's actually acted as a very temperate Governor, something made difficult by 1) the intemperate level of our current politics, and 2) the occasional shortsightedness of the legislature.1
Anyhow, if you've ever had the occasion to see, Gordon and Gray together in an official setting, it's clear they don't get along. Indeed, on the State Land Board, it's clear that Gordon isn't the only one that's not keen on Gray. Gray for his part reacts back, as he did recently when he sent an unprecedented lengthy letter to the Governor on his vetoes.
Gray, like Donald Trump, has some feverish admirers.2 Indeed, this seems to be a hallmark of the populist right. They not only run candidates, but they develop personality cults routinely.
Rod Miller, again, in a recent column noted a real problem that Gray has. As, so far, they haven't really been able to advance their agenda without the help of conservatives, they have an advantage there as they always portray themselves as besieged by the numerous barbarians, the last legionnaire on Hadrian's Wall. Trump has actually, at a national level, worked to keep that status by ordering his party to defeat immigration legislation that was probably a once in a lifetime conservative opportunity.
Anyhow, as noted, Rod Miller recently noted a problem that Gray has. He's not married.
Indeed, without going into it, there was a figure in Wyoming decades ago whose marriage was questioned by whisperers on the basis that they believed he married just to end the speculation on why he wasn't married. The marriage lasted a very long time, so presumably the rumors were without foundation, but there were questions, which is interesting and shows, I guess, how people's minds can work.
Another way to look at it, I supposed, was prior to Trump if a person was a conservative people would ask about things that appeared to be contrary to public statements about conservatism. Not being married, for a conservative, was regarded as odd, and for that matter there are still people who whisper about Lindsey Graham, while nobody seems to worry about AOC being shacked up with her boyfriend or whatever is going on with Krysten Sinema.
And then there's Gray's age. It will make people suspicious of him at some point, or people will at least take note. Indeed, some of his critics from the left already have, but in a really juvenile way.
Actually determining Gray's age is a little difficult, and indeed, knowing anything about his background actually is. But Cowboy State Daily, a conservative organ, managed to reveal about as much as we know.
Gray was born in California and raised outside of Los Angeles. According to somebody close to the family, or who was, he was homeschooled by his mother.3He felt uncomfortable about his birthplace, and stated in the campaign
I come from a divorced family, like many people in our country. A judge said I was to live in a different place, but my dad lived here, built a business here, and I spent my summers here during the time that was allocated by the judge.
According to the same source, he didn't seem all that happy in Casper, Wyoming as a kid, but the circumstances could well explain that. The same source, who probably isn't a family friend anymore, reported to the Cowboy that Gray's father had a focus on the family owned radio station impacting legislation at a national level. Photos have been circulated of the father with President Reagan.
Gray graduated from high school in 2008 and the respected University of Pennsylvanian in 2012, which makes it all the more remarkable that he's been a success in Wyoming politics.4 If we assume the norm about graduation ages, he would have been 22 in 2012, which would make him 34 now.
In Wyoming, the average age for men to marry is 27.8 years on average, while for women it's 25.6. Gray's now notably over the median age, but that is a median. I was over it too when I married at age 31. My wife was below the female one. That's how averages work.
My parents, I'd note, were both over the median, although I don't know it with precision for the 1950s. In the 50s, the marriage age was actually at an unusual low. My father was 29, and my mother 32.
So his age, in the abstract, doesn't really mean anything overall, although it might personality wise.
As has been noted elsewhere on this site, Gray is a Roman Catholic and indeed I've seen him occasionally at Mass, although I would never have seen him every weekend as there are a lot of weekend Masses and my habits aren't the same as his. I have no reason to believe that he didn't attend weekly as required by the church.5 Catholics are supposed to observe traditional Catholic teachings in regard to sex and marriage. I'm not really going to be delving into that, but again we have no reason to believe that Gray isn't observant, in which case, as he is not married, he should be living as a chaste single man, and he probably is (something that has casued juvenile left wing ribbing).
Wyoming, however, is the least religious state in the union and while Catholics, Orthodox, Mormons and Protestants of traditional morality observe that morality, here, as with the rest of the United States, the late stage mass casualty nature of the Sexual Revolution means that a lot of people in these faiths don't, and the society at large does not. We've gone from a society where such outside the bounds of marriage behavior was illegal in varying degrees, to one where, nationwide, society pushes people into things whether they want to or not.
Be that as it may, save for Casper, Laramie, and probably Cheyenne, sexual conduct outside the biological gender norm is very much looked down upon. Indeed, in a really dense move, a Democratic Albany County legislator went to a meeting in Northeast Wyoming a while back on homosexual issues and was shocked by the hostile reception she received. She shouldn't have been.
No, I'm not saying this applies to Gray. I have no reason to believe that, and indeed I believe the opposite.
However, we've gone from a state whose ethos was "I don't care what you do as long as you leave me alone" to one in which, largely due to the importation of Evangelicals from elsewhere, a fairly large percentage of the population really care about what you do, particularly if they don't like it.
Indeed, at the time that Matthew Shepard was murdered, I was surprised when I heard an anti-homosexual comment. Such comments do not surprise me now, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear one now in the context of a murder. As noted, the exceptions seem to be Laramie (where Shepard was murdered, but which has never been hostile to homosexuals), Casper (which has had a homosexual 20 something mayor and which has a lesbian city council member) and Cheyenne (which has a homosexual member of the state House, as does Albany County). Well, I omitted Jackson and should include it here too.
At any rate, being an open homosexual and aiming for major office probably is impossible, although for minor ones it hasn't proven to be. The point is, however, that Miller is right. At some point, people are going to start wondering why staunchly populist Gray isn't married.
Maybe it's because he is in fact a staunchly populist out of state import. There aren't that many women in that pool. Indeed, having a one time vague contact with our staunchly populist Congresswoman, I was very surprised when it turned out she was a populist, or even a conservative. I'm not saying that she's not, I'm just surprised.
Gray is in a sort of oddball demographic. Not being from here, he wouldn't be in any circles in which women from here, professionals or otherwise, would be in. He appears to really be a fish out of water in terms of the local culture. When he appears at things, he does wear cowboy boots, but you can tell they've never been in a stirrup, and he otherwise is, at least based on my very limited observation of him, always dressed in what we might sort of regard as 1980s Denver Business Casual. I'd be stunned if I saw him on a trout stream or out in the prairie with his bird dog, Rex. I've seen him at a bar once, for a grand opening of something, but I don't imagine him walking up to the tender at The Buckhorn or The Oregon Trail and ordering a double Jack Daniel's either.
I was once told by an out-of-state lawyer who had been born in the state but who had moved to Denver after graduating from law school, regarding Wyomingites, that "you have to be tough just to live there". People who live here probably don't realize that, but there's more than a little truth to it. I'm often shocked by the appearance of populist legislature Jeanette Ward, as it's so clear she just doesn't belong here. She's not the kind of gal who would be comfortable sitting next to the ranch girl chewing tobacco who has the "Wrangler Butts Drive Me Nuts" bumper sticker on her pickup truck.6 Gray probably isn't comfortable with such a gal either. "Tomboys", as they used to be called, are sort of the mean average for Wyoming women.
Gray is well-educated, of course, which is part of the reason that I suspect a lot of his positions are affectations. I don't think he really believes the election was stolen, for example, unless he's doing so willfully, which would mean that he really doesn't believe that. Recently he's taken on the topic of firearms arguing, as part of the State Facilities Commission, that the state needs to open up carrying guns at the capitol, which is frankly absurd. While I don't know the answer, I suspect that Gray isn't really a firearms' aficionado.
Up until very recently, Wyomingites knew a lot about the people they sent to the legislature and public office, often knowing them personally to some degree. We actually knew the Governor and the First Lady on some basis other than politics, quite frequently, and our local reps we knew pretty well. The populist invasion defeated that to some degree, and in some cases, a great deal. The question is whether this is permanent, or temporary. It wasn't until the last election that people looked at Gray's background at all, and they still have very little. People haven't really grasped until just now that many of the Freedom Caucus are imports, not natives. We don't know much about some of them or their families, and chances are an average Wyomingite, or at least a long term native, would regard them as odd on some occasions. Chuck Gray just ran an op ed that was titled something like Only Wyomingites Should Vote In Wyoming's Elections. Most long term and native born Wyomingites feel that strongly, and wouldn't actually regard a lot of our current office holders as being Wyomingites.
There's evidence that the populist fad is passing. We'll see. This and the 2026 election will be a test of it. 2026 is a long ways off. For that matter, it's sufficiently long enough for these candidates to evolve if they need to. Some are probably capable of doing that. Others, undoubtedly not. The question will be if they need to.
May 11, 2024
It's very clear, to those paying any attention, that Wyoming elected executive branch officials really dislike Chuck Gray, including those who are very conservative. This became evident again when Superintendant of Education Degenfelder indicated Wyoming would join a Title IX lawsuit in opposition to the Federal Government's new rules on "transgender" atheletes. Degenfelder indicated that she'd been working behind the scenes with Gov. Gordon on this matter. In doing so she blasted Gray who earlier made comments wondering where the state's officials were on this matter, even though his office has less than 0 responsiblity in this department. Degenfelder stated in regard to Gray, "I would encourage Secretary Gray to join those of us actually making plays on the field rather than just heckling from the sidelines". Gray, who is a Californian who has lived very little of his life in Wyoming save for summers here while growing up, declared in response he was on "Team Wyoming".
FWIW, Wyoming really doesn't need to particpate in lawsuits maintained by other parties, as they're already maintained.
July 8, 2024
Now here's an interesting development. . .
I may have mentioned on this blog before that I feel Gov. Gordon should consider running, text of the Wyoming Constitution aside, for a third term. In doing so, if I did (I know that I've discussed with people) I've noted that the Constitutional prohibition on him doing so violates the Wyoming Constitution.
Turns out that I'm not the only one speculating on that.
And it turns out that Chuck Gray doesn't like the idea at all.
January 7, 2025
I managed to miss it, but back in November, Brent Bien announced for Governor.
Bien is on the far right, and is a Wyoming native, but he spent 28 years in the Marine Corps before retiring in 2019 and coming back to the state. This puts him in the camp of far right Republicans in the state who spent their entire working lives drawing on one of richest portions of the government t** while also never actually having to make sure a business actually functioned.
I've never quite grasped "trust me, I know how run things for the common man. . .I've never actually had to work in a business. . . "
Moreover, Bien was a prime mover on the initiatives that will be on the ballot to cut property taxes 50%, essentially meaning he's backing bankrupting local governments and schools. So, after living off of taxpayers for his adult life, having retired, with a retirement funded by taxpayers, he doesn't want to pay them himself.
1. There are numerous examples of this, but a really good one is Gordon's effort to buy the UP checkerboard, which the legislature defeated. It would have been a real boon for the state, but fiscal conservatives just couldn't see it that way.
Recently, Gordon hasn't been shy about vetoing highly unadvised bills that have come out of the legislature, or shutting down bad regulations that come out of the Secretary of State's office.
2. And not just Gray, Harriet Hageman does as well.
3. Homeschooling, for whatever reason a person does it, can be developmentally limiting. I don't know about Gray's case, but its notable that some on the far right have done it, as they believe that schools are left wing organs and there are things they don't want their children exposed to them. The problem this presents is that children who are homeschooled grow up in a very narrow environment, whereas, at least here, those who go to public, and for that matter religious schools, do not.
4. There used to be a school interview of him from the University of Pennsylvania, in which he expressed a desire to become a lawyer. He's clearly not going to do that now, unless of course his political career ended, which is perfectly possible.
5. As noted here in prior posts, lying is regarded as a potentially serious sin in Catholicism, and lying about something like who won the 2020 election would be, in some circumstances, a mortal sin if you were a political figure.
6. Ward is from Illinois and openly calls herself a political refugee. At the time of moving here, she posted something about her children not having to wear masks in our public schools, adopting the far right wing view that trying to protect others in this fashion is somehow an intrusion on liberty. I suppose it is, but not relieving yourself in public is as well. Anyhow, at some point, presuming those children remain in public school, she'll be in for a shock as Casper's schools truly have a really wide demographic and are not exactly made up of an Evangelical populist sample of the population.
While a non partisan race, in Wisconsin the liberal Democratic candidate for the Supreme Court prevailed over the Musk backed conservative Republican.
The race was widely regarded as a test of how people are feeling about Trump.
In Florida two Republicans won election in open House seats in heavily Republican districts, but the Democrats did better than expected. A Democratic victory would have been a huge upset, so in some ways this also showed that people aren't keen on the GOP path.
April 17, 2025
And the race for Governor is sort of on.
Now in the GOP race are two declared candidates, one of whom has filed, Joseph Kibler. Brent Bien has said he's running as well.
Both are in the far, far, right. Kibler moved to Wyoming (his wife is from Wyoming) in 2020. Bien is a Wyoming native, but completed a Marine Corps career and therefore fits into the crowed of Wyoming anti government candidates whose careers were in the government.
Adam Kinzinger (Slava Ukraini) 🇺🇸🇺🇦 @AdamKinzinger 10m
It’s a struggle to understand why @SenThomTillis is now suddenly “over it” in DC after personally ensuring Kash Patel gets the FBI director job
Kinzinger knows the answer, he's just justifiably angry.
The answer is that The Big Ugly is just a bridge too far for anyone who's following it and is awake, including real fiscal conservatives. None of those people, who if they have actual following constituents, want to be there in the fall of 2026 trying to explain things.
The 2026 election has begun.
It'll interesting to see how this pays out.
Lummis is up for reelection, assuming she runs, and she will. She'll blame the Democrats for anything that goes wrong, and talk about being the Cyberqueen.
If she faces a solid challenger, after the Public Lands vote, she'll be in trouble.
The House seat is also up. Hageman won't run for that however, she's going to run for Governor. She's going to lose that.
Chuck Gray is going to run for the House, and he'll lose that.
Times are changing. Whether or not The Big Ugly passes, Trump has shot his bolt. True acolytes can wear "Trump was right about everything" truckers caps, but the opposite is proving to be true.
And this is about to get a lot worse for the GOP.
cont:
And now Nebraska's Don Bacon. The Congressman is in a district that's becoming increasingly Democratic, and my guess is it likely now will be a Democratic seat. The Republicans only hold a seven seat majority right now, which will be reduced to a five seat majority once the Democrats fill two vacant seats. Even assuming the Republicans hold every seat they currently have with out Bacon, that would reduce them to a four seat majority.
But they won't hold every seat. The House will flip.
Pretty effective 1970s vintage Army recruiting poster seeking female recruits.
There's been some interesting signs of things to come recently, including where Hegseth is headed on women in the military, and where Trump's close acolytes are headed in regard to his increasing mental decline.
Interesting times.
We'll start with Hegseth.
As anyone who stops in here is well aware, I'm not a Trump fan. I'm conservative, actually conservative, but I'm not lockstep in line with anyone. Frankly, anyone who is, just isn't thinking. Anyhow, The Trump regime is not conservative but populist, and populist in the same way that gave rise to fascism in various European nations in the 30s, or to Communism to others in the teens and twenties. But I can see how we got here and indeed I'd been warning about this for some time before it happened. As readers here know, once Obergefell was decided by the U.S. Supreme Court I feared a political breakdown was inevitable.1 I also thought that claims made at the time that Obergefell wouldn't lead to a more radical development in the category of gender norms were badly misguided, and I was proved correct about that. The country was headed toward acceptance of homosexual unions as marriages, irrespective of what social conservatives may think of that, but Justice Kennedy and his fellow travelers hijacking the trend line without any real legal weight behind it jump started the country right into the transgender movement which helped radicalize an already radicalizing populist base in the right wing of the GOP.2
Women in combat roles in the US came the following year, 2016, and was controversial at the time and remains so in social conservative I recently posted on it, and I remain very much opposed to it. While I'm not a fan of Hegseth, he's on record as opposing it as well.
Some time ago Hegseth ordered that the service review its physical fitness standards on a gender neutral basis.3 This isn't really the first time that this has been done and the results can probably be predicted.
Indeed, they can be predicted in part due to the experiences of women in sports competing with men who are surgically and chemically altered to female morphologies, but more on that in a moment.
At the time, I thought that was probably step one towards removing women from combat roles.
Then Hegseth came out with a tweet (I wish government officials would stay off Twitter) endorsing a story in the Telegraph, a British newspaper. The article was this one:
Hegseth, in his comment, noted the problems of women in combat roles, although only briefly and vaguely.
Like a lot of things repeated on Twitter, the Tweet falls sort of teh full story:
The IDF is just suspending the study and will get back to a new one.
Before all of this, Hegseth ordered that "transgendered" troops leave the service. That was probably the least controversial thing he could do, and it makes perfect sense. Gender Dysphoria may exist, but transgenderism does not. Moreover, if you have to take medication just to keep your morphology, you really aren't ready for the rigors of military life.
Transgenderism in general, which will also get to below, is really a manifestation of, in my view, a mental illness. It's a trendy one, however, and is part of the culture wars which gave rise to a radicalized far right, and then to Trump.
Ordering that "transgendered" troops get out of the service is one thing, but then there's this:
This isn't related to women in combat, but it's certainly a shot in the culture wars and a surprising one. With the constant storm surrounding the Trump Regime, it didn't generate nearly as much controversy as I thought it would, and that may have been why it was done. Running that up the flagpole may have been a test by Hegseth to see how much flak he'll get if he orders women out of combat roles.
There's a lot of evidence of this around, and it makes a big difference to what Hegseth, and others in the Trump Administration, depending upon how savvy they are to trends, are behaving.
Trump is increasingly erratic and weird. He's also becoming increasingly ineffective. Having done a lot early on in a flurry of Executive Orders, the Courts, save for the Supreme Court, so far, are effectively saying "hold on Buckwheat" and stopping much of what he's done. The entire goofball DOGE effort is the same. Indeed, at least one minor agency is being reconstructed, amazingly, after Musk and his wrecking crew attacked it.4 Indeed, DOGE achieved a mess, but that's about it. Bill Clinton's effort to cut the size of the government, which lead to a surplus in its day, was much more effective.
Now the wheels are coming off. Musk is feuding with Trump. The Senate may not pass the Big Ugly Bill, at least not in the form the sycophantic House did. Questions are being razed.
Trump is being publicly mocked as "Taco".
The bloom is off the rose, Trump's authority is declining, and the looming 25th Amendment is getting warmed up.
Have you noticed that James Donald Bowman, aka J. D. Vance, whom we heard from constantly early on, is now pretty much silent. That's not an accident. Vance will take over when Trump is booted, and my guess that he doesn't want to be tainted with Trump any more than he has to be. He's gone from insulting Ukrainian Presidents for not wearing suits, to just not being there.
Which brings this back around to women in the military, and other social issues. National Conservatives and Christian Nationalist rode into power on Trump's back as they knew that they could. They also know, however, that they need time to completely overhaul the nation to look like they want it to, and 18 months, all the more time I've given Trump before he is hauled off to an assisted living wing of Mar A Lago, isn't enough. Four years isn't either, and frankly the Democrats are going to retake the House of Representatives nexts year. If Vance doesn't secure reelection after this administration is done with, much of what the National Conservatives/Christian Nationalist did during their four years will just be dust in the wind.
In order for anything to stick, it has to be done quickly, so that the electorate is acclimated to it by 2028, or there has to be a plan to stay in power in 2028. My guess that Vance's disappearing act is part of that.
I fear what else may be.5
Back to some rambling.
As is often the case, a certain element of synchronicity tends to work on these posts, with various things coming up with that cause the thread to be posted. Just as I started contemplating the women in combat topic, again, a couple of such things did which are related.
I subscribe to Mandatory Fun Day on Instagram. A buddy of mine who had been in the service sent me some of his clips and they're hilarious, if you've been in the Army. If you haven't, they're probably completely baffling.
Anyhow, as I subscribe on Instagram, they started coming up on Facebook as "reels". No problem. The fact that they did, however, meant that I'd get suggested reels by other service members following in the creator's wake. They were uniformly pretty bad.
All of a sudden, having not taken interest in those, Facebook started suggesting reels by female service members, a large number of which are service women in their t-shirts being cute in a college coed fashion, or worse. Dancing female soldiers show up, and even twerking ones. Women showing how they dress in their uniforms, starting with pretty much only skivvies on, is another. Perhaps the one most illustrative of why I regard this all a problem was one in which a female soldier photographed herself in GI trousers, and regulation brown t-shirt, showing "how I feel when I see my man in uniform", which involved clutching her breasts and and having her free hand south of her fly.
And all of this is observable just on the suggested feed, not on what shows up if you click on it.
One I did click on, as it was so oddly titled, involved a cute young woman making babyish "moo" sounds, in an item entitled "she found her moo". The voice of the filmer was also female. Apparently the moo thing is some sort internet trend.
Anyhow, relationships, and you can use your imagination as to what I mean by that, are a problem in college dorms where nobody is expected to kill anyone. They've been a huge problem in the service, and the Marine Corps had to take steps some time ago to order female Marines to knock off seductive filming, some of which featured female Marines nude. Young women acting like young women away from home and in college dorms isn't surprising, but it sure isn't conductive to unit cohesiveness in organizations in which death and destruction is a routine norm.
Put another way, the "man" whom the young woman touching body parts which used to be referenced in the Jody Call "The Prettiest Girl I Ever Saw" is going to be a problem in any unit, let alone one in which a soldier may be expected to leave her behind to be killed.6 7
Moo.
Anyhow, while noting all of this, I also saw a series of stories recently about women being upset by having to compete against men, who are "transgendered". Also, UW is now being investigated due to Artemis Langford being in a sorority, at the same time that sorority sisters are trying to keep him out.
That caused me to realize how often its women who lead the charge in this are. Women know they are women and they justifiably feel that in sports they shouldn't have to compete against men. And they aren't the only ones. An international body that regulates boxing has imposed genetic tests on female boxers to make sure they're female.
The reason for all of this is that even second rate male athletes turn out to be almost unstoppable competition in female sports, when they compete as transgendered. Women resent it, and rightfully.
But oddly enough society hasn't seemingly noted something that Hemingway noted many years ago.
I'm not saying that war is nice. Quite the contrary. But in some ways its the ultimate athletic endeavor, even now in the era of high tech weapons. And let us be honest Killing is part of it, but there's never been a conflict anywhere in the world where brutalization and rape haven't been part of it, nor has there ever been one in which some women took advantage of their assets in a wartime pinch.
Women don't belong in combat.
Let's go back to the plight of the UW sorority for a second.
The entire saga here shows how difficult it can be for public institutions in this bizarre era in which we live. It's obvious that a male should not be in a sorority, and Langford may dress as a female and wish to be regarded as one, but at least the last time I checked on the story, he hadn't "transitioned", which means he's full equipped. There's no reason that a young woman should be forced to live in close residential confines with a man if she doesn't wish to.
The other sad aspect of this is that this entire saga, in which they've sued, and I don't blame them, and now the Trump Administration is investigating UW, means that his entire delusion has become his identity, when had this been treated as what it was, a mental illness, it might all be past tense by now. Indeed, just looking it would suggest that it might very well have been.8
Anyhow, stuff like this puts universities in the can't win for losing situation. Charlie Kirk, a right wing populist babbler, has made comments on Langford, and a right wing populist law student just sponsored him talking on campus.
Pity poor UW.
Back to Hegseth t he White House is looking for a new chief of staff and several senior advisers to support him, but there's been no takers.
Again, this Administration has shot its bolt, and its showing.
Some are declaring that this is a first step towards nationwide martial law. I doubt it. It's a bad move however. Troops, including National Guardsmen, make poor police. They really aren't trained for it, but are trained to use force.
Usually troops, including National Guardsmen, who are deployed in this role aren't given ammunition. The opposite can happen, of course, as Kent State famously and tragically indicated. This is a bad look, anyway you view it.
To circle back, how much of what we're seeing now, will stick? Trump's really on his way out, and it's doubtful the culture has been much impacted, so far.
Footnotes:
1. This thread has been getting a lot of views for some reason recently, and is often one of the most popular ones of the week.
2. Kennedy provides us with another example of the disaster of the very aged being in a position of authority.
3. The order states:
High standards are what made the United States military the greatest fighting force on the planet. The strength of our military is our unity and our shared purpose. We are made stronger and more disciplined with high, uncompromising, and clear standards.
I am directing the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (USD(P&R)) to gather the existing standards set by the Military Departments pertaining to physical fitness, body composition, and grooming, which includes but is not limited to beards. The USD(P&R) will conduct a review of these standards and how they have changed since January 1, 2015 . The review will also provide insight on why those standards changed and the impact of those changes. The USD(P&R) has the authority to task the Secretaries of the Military Departments and other DoD Component heads as necessary to provide any required information in support of this review and will provide detailed guidance to the Military Departments.
We must remain vigilant in maintaining the standards that enable the men and women of our military to protect the American people and our homeland as the world' s most lethal and effective fighting force. Our adversaries are not growing weaker, and our tasks are not growing less challenging. This review will illuminate how the Department has maintained the level of standards required over the recent past and the trajectory of any change in those standards.
4. None of which has kept the perpetually behind the curve Wyoming legislature from heading off with its own DOGE effort, just as the Federal effort is sinking.
5. Having said that, by any standard Vance will be more normal than Trump, which doesn't mean he will get reelected in 2028.
6. They must be banned now, but the Army used to have a lot of Jody Calls that were outright foul, but probably serve to illustrate the atmosphere that units of young men tend to have, for good or ill. In this call, a solder recalls drinking in a bar and touching a woman next to him in various place until she says "GI, you know the rest", resulting in his now having a bunch of children.
8. I don't know all the details, but from what little you can pick up on the net, Langford's parents seem to have gone through a bad divorce and his father obtained custody. Langford relates that he solidified his view of himself as a woman following a desperate nighttime prayer. He was a Mormon, and while many faiths recognize praying for guidance, the Mormon faith has a "burning bosom" line of thought on some things. The LDS are not, however, supportive of transgenderism, which is interesting, and Langford now identifies as an Episcopalian. Some branches of the Episcopal church have been notoriously willing to accept gender trends, which is part of the reason that the Episcopal Church is rapidly declining in membership.
