Pollice Verso. The 2026 Political Negative Endorsement. The Don't Vote For List.

I've run items on elections here for a long time, and made my views on various candidates more or less known, but this year is really a critical year.

So, we aren't telling you who to vote for, but for the first time ever, we're publishing something on whom we think you should vote against, although it frankly takes a lot of hubris to even assume anyone at all cares what I think on this topic.

#very election season people say something about the election being the most critical one ever but 2026 really is.  2026 may be the last gasp of American democracy, or the beginning of the restoration of it.  Right now, the American electorate basically stabbed democracy accidentally in the back by electing a mentally declining spoiled rich boy caudillo, and the whole world is paying the price.

The US is being run on a near dictatorial basis by the madman.  The Republican Party, save for a few of its notable members, has become nothing but a collection of worshippers, many of whom are steeped in ignorance.  The childlike ignoramus who is running the country is going to try to steal the 2026 elections.  About this there can be no doubt.

Part of the duty of the voters is to be informed.  It's pretty clear a lot of American voters, no matter what their party affiliation, aren't.  Indeed, I dare say the most informed voters are Independents who have informed themselves on both parties and marched out of the parties absolutely disgusted.

In Wyoming you almost have to be a member of the Republican Party or you have no vote at all.  But in Wyoming a collection of Dixiecrats who think they are Republicans and think they are for "freedom" is now the most powerful voice in the legislature and due to Cynthia Lummis retiring the entire mix of candidates is in flux.

This trailing thread is a list of people to vote against.  That's a terrible way to vote, but given the times and the slate of candidates, its something people need to consider.

This list, we'll note, is limited to current candidates.  Not every Wyoming politician.  If experience is any guide we would note that not getting voted for tends to refocus a politicians attention like nothing else.  If there's a big shift in 2026 and some traction on that in Wyoming, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Chuck Gray wrote daily proposals of marriage to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

There are plenty of candidates running for office in Wyoming who'd end the public's right to do this, or anything, on public land.

Enemies of Public Lands, Hunters and Fishermen

Wyoming public lands users were shocked in 2025 with Deseret Mike Lee lead a full blown charge at public lands and Wyoming's Lummis, Barrasso, and Hageman joined right in.   Given their histories respectively of 1) being a Cheshire Cat, 2) Being a sycophantic toady and 3) being a member of a family that very distinctly doesn't care much for anyone who isn't an agricultural landowner, we shouldn't have been surprised, and yet we were.

Our guards still need to be up in a major way.  This issue hasn't gone away and if 2025/26s Trump babbling about Greenland, Gaza and Venezuela has shown anything, its that Donald Trump's GOP doesn't give a rats ass about anything that can't be reduced to a sale and the future just doesn't matter.  He's a shallow golf course developer and see the entire world that way, to his everlasting discredit.

And the GOP is right behind him.

People public lands users, and that includes ranchers who will get completely screwed if Deseret Mike Lee and his ilk have his way, follow.¹

These people have no Land Ethic.

Bill Allemand:  Allemand is from a large ranching family in the state but has claimed not to be part of the ranching operations himself.  Nonetheless he showed his hand by sponsoring a really punitive hunting trespass bill that failed last session.

That should preclude him from being reelected.  He's an enemy of sportsmen.

He's also a Dixiecrat.

And he's extremely rude.  His first run for office was characterized by outrageous comments about his opponent and he's shown a real temper since being elected.  Most recently, he stated outrageous things against a Deputy Sheriff who arrested him for drunk driving in Johnson County.²   A cutting editorial by Susan Stubson on his drunk driving escapade is well worth reading.

On Allemand:

Rep. Bill Allemand asks judge to rescind court-ordered alcohol testing during upcoming legislative session: The Midwest lawmaker is contesting his DUI charge following his arrest last month in Johnson County.

The answer to that ought to be a hard no. 

Harriet Hageman:  Hageman is from a large ranching/farming family in southeast Wyoming.  Her father was the sponsor of an effort to privatize wildlife when he was in the legislature.  Hageman aggressively backed an effort to transfer Wyoming's Federal lands to the state and responded to criticism of those who opposed her by basically calling them dumb.

This past term her family homestead burned to the ground in a year that's been extremely warm and devoid of moisture. There were poignant comments about it, including from her, which tend to demonstrate the agricultural community's absolute refusal to read what is really in front of their face, climate wise.  It's ironic, in that even university educated agriculturalist like Hageman, who depend on animal science daily, refuse to believe that any other science is valid.

Jacob Wasserburger:  Wasserburger came up with this bad idea, but it sounds a lot like he's been sitting around with Mike Lee, the Senator from Deseret

Going Feral: Lawmaker Unveils Bill To Sell Between 30,000 And 2...: Another moronic idea by a Wyoming Republican, a party which seems to draw from the endless well of bad ideas. Wasserburger is going right on...

He's signed on to the no prescription for Ivermectin act as well, these two things indicating that he's hanging out with, in not in, the Freedom Caucus.  A little digging reveals that Wasserburger is from a Niobrara County ranch and has been practicing law since 2008, at which he's bounced around a lot, including having once worked for a major Democratic politician and a really good Republican one.  He did a stint in government work as well.

Original post:  January 20, 2026.

Updates:  January 24, 2026, January 27, 2026.

Allies of Ignorance.  Trump Fellow Travelers and Dixiecrats.

I suspect that some of these people probably really love Trump, while others are just opportunistic and  pitching to ignorant Wyoming voters, telling them what they know they want to hear.  Either way, they shouldn't be voted for, either because they believe the nonsense they're spouting, or because they're willing to lie to obtain office.

Some of these folks are members of the largely carpetbagging Wyoming Freedom Caucus as well, which definitely should disqualify them.  They're not running for office in 2026 Wyoming but 1966 Alabama.  It's estimated that 42 members of the House, which has only 62 seats, in the Wyoming legislature are occupied by Freedom Caucus members, but it is an estimate as some of them will not openly declare their membership showing that they have some reservations about it.

Something Wyoming voters should know is that unlike other caucuses, once a legislator joins the WFC he or she can sit on his legislative rear and do nothing, as the WFC does all the work, including drafting bills it wants and telling the potted WFC plant what to say and think.  The money, and at least some of the bill drafting, comes from outside of the state.  The Freedom  Caucus is effectively an alien, that is carpetbagging, force in the state, in the true original sense of the meaning of the word carpetbagger.

Megen Degenfelder:  Degenfelder is the current Superintendent of Public Instruction who has announced for Governor.. She's clearly very far right wing, but she doesn't appear to be a full blown MAGA adherent.  Still, she received King Donny's endorsement and wrapped herself in it, and for that reason alone should be rejected.

I do have a question, however, based on her time in office, as to how much of the MAGA nonsense she really believes.  As one of the Board of State Land Commissioners she hasn't been a fellow traveler with Gray, and the evidence suggests that absolutely nobody on that Board can stand Gray. The Governor clearly does not, but it doesn't really look like anyone else does either.  And Degenfelder hasn't come out with any of the really extreme crap that Gray has, or even that Cindy Hill had.  Given that, she might be on the Trump Train in a boxcar ready to jump off when and if things begin to derail.  So I'll cut her a little slack, albeit very, very, little.

In this race, so far, it looks to me that Barlow is the best candidate.

Chuck Gray:  Gray's a carpetbagging opportunist who took advantage of lies to obtain the position of Secretary of State where he's been a general pain in the ass.  He's not from here, he's not of here, and he should be sent packing as a disagreeable asshole.  He literally obtained his office mounted on a steed of lies.

Gray, I'll note, was one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus and perhaps because of that hasn't been asked the questions or subject to sideways glances that some in his situation might have been, which is interesting.

Ken Pendergraft:  A member of the Freedom Caucus who voted to slash U.W.'s budget.

The Freedom Caucus is pretty much the Freakishly Dumb Caucus and basically opposes education.  Educated people, it turns out, tend to be moderate and don't believe that global warming is a fib, or that the Earth is 4,000 years old, or that Christianity somehow started in the US with an Evangelical Free Church.  So education is bad, in their view.

Jeremy Haroldson:  A member of the Freedom Caucus who voted to slash U.W. budget.

Jacob Wasserburger: As we suspected, Wasserburger is part of the WFC.  

The Freedom Caucus thinks that they are Republicans, but they are not. They're Jeffersonian Democrats, i.e., Dixiecrats.

Original post:  January 20, 2026.  Updates:  January 28, 2028.

Carpetbaggers

This may seem like an odd thing to post in this category, but this film, which I hate, really frames the Wyoming mindset in some ways, even though the novel from which its taken was set in Appalachia.  Clayboy's father and eight uncles may have fallen in love here, but Clayboy is going to abandon one of the most beautiful spots on earth and the two hot chicks pursuing him so he can go to university, learn to write, and sit in an office smoking cigarettes behind a typewriter because he's convinced that must be superior to what he already has.

Wyoming has always had a transient population and, additionally, a pretty pronounced history of self doubt and even self loathing. For that reason, we're pretty willing as a rule to elect imports who claim to be like us, even though we know that they aren't.  We really think they're better than us.

Right now, for example, we have Dr. John Barrasso who isn't a Wyomingite but sort of pretends to be one, or at least was up until becoming the Senate Majority Whip.  He's a Pennsylvanian.  He's a Boomer so chances are that this is his last hurrah before he retires and gets the heck out of here.  

We've added a note above about the funding of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which pretty much qualifies the caucus itself, if not every single members, as the Wyoming Foreign Carpetbaggers.

Chuck Gray:  Gray is a Californian who shares nothing in common with anyone whatsoever in the state.   He should be sent back to California.

Indeed, one of the most pathetic things about Gray campaigns is when they dress the diminutive little guy up and try to film him in Wyoming.  There he is, looking at an oil rig, and looking mighty uncomfortable, and so on.

Joseph Kibler:  Kibler is a recent import from California, and should just go home.  He's running for Governor.

Original post:  January 20, 2026.

Updates:  January 24, 2026, 

Bottle Babies and Stahlhelm

In recent years Wyoming has seen people run for office touting their experience as a veteran. They basically fall into two groups.

One group were career servicemen who sucked on the government tit their entire working lives and now have moved into Wyoming or have come back to Wyoming after decades of being gone and, uniformly, declare they hate the government and know how to fix it. Their hatred didn't keep them from competing in the free job economy with the rest of us, however.

They didn't run their military careers like they claim they'll run the state.  I.e, they didn't come in and say "I hate the military with the red hot passion of a thousand burning suns and I'm going to destroy it!".

The other group are men who run simply on having been a veteran.  Eh?  Lee Harvey Oswald was a veteran.   This group has nothing much more to say other than "I'm a veteran".  So what?  Lots of people are veterans.  This is the Stahlhelm group.

Brent Bien is a bottle baby.  He was a career Marin Corps officer and had a really distinguished career.  Now he's back in the state and seeks to apply that experience, which is wholly irrelevant to running the state, to wrecking government.

Original post:  January 20, 2026.

Democrats in delusion

On this category, let me be clear.  I want more Democrats to run, but I want solid Democrats to run.  While its a long shot, I think a centrist Democratic Party in the state, which we used to have, and which gave us multiple Governors, could gain seats, including some important seats.  Indeed, I'm surprised that some names that used to appear haven't re-appeared so far.

The first thing I'm going to note is that the Democrats need to avoid wrapping themselves in bloody surgical towels and rainbow flags, but they just can't seem to avoid doing it.  They should take a lesson from one of their own recent events:

Affordability, healthcare and public lands echo as top concerns at Dem listening sessions

But instead of that, they'll end up talking about "reproductive rights" and "gender determination" and completely ax themselves.

What the Democratic Party should do in Wyoming is flat out instruct its candidates not to take hardcore positions on these issues.  Ideally, they ought to run a moderate prolife Democrat, which would be something the GOP wouldn't know how to handle. If a Democratic candidate went to a house seat debate and took a position to the right of the Republican on the typical social issues, they'd be caught flat footed and resort to name calling.  Better yet, if asked about abortion, and a Democratic candidate said "I'm flat out against it, and why has Donald Trump come out being sort of for it?" the Republicans wouldn't know what to do.

But, nope, that won't happen.

Anyhow, while we want Democrats to run, and want third party candidates to run, some will end up on this list as they're actually sucking air out of the room which shouldn't be.

Stewart McAdoo fits this category.  McAdoo is a Democrat who is running against Art Washut in House District 36.  Washut is a real conservative (and very conservative at that), and not a populist Freedom Caucus member.  Losing him would be a disaster for Wyoming.  I've never heard of him, but he appears to be an import to the state, which might place him in another category as well.

Original post:  January 22, 2026.

Footnotes

1.  While I know that it will happen no time soon, it really needs to become the case that lands that went into private hands through a Homestead Act can't go into corporate or absentee hands.

2.  According to news reports Allemand admitted to the sheriff's deputy that he drank and drive, in order to address "stress".  In the papers he came out just like he did in the campaign, which is to say as a boisterous asshole.  That alone should put an end to his political career.

Most of his business career, we'd note, was spent in Kansas.  He ought to just go back to Kansas.

Going Feral: Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving

Going Feral: Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving: Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving : Wyoming Freedom Caucus member allegedly admitted that ‘he drinks while driving for an...

Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving

Rep. Bill Allemand arrested for drinking and driving: Wyoming Freedom Caucus member allegedly admitted that ‘he drinks while driving for anxiety,’ Johnson County Sheriff’s Office report says.

I suppose its an example of Schadenfreude, but Allemand is a an enemy of sportsmen and public lands, as well as being a central figure in an effort to kill a proposed industrial project north of Natrona County's Bar Nunn.

He's notably a Wyomingite, albeit one who spent most of his working life in Kansas, whose positions on things match the Freedom Caucus's, anti public lands, anti nuclear for some reason and pro whatever goofball thing the Freedom Caucus is for.  In his first run for office he was downright nasty to his opponent, and frankly the residents of his House district are not to be admired for voting for him in that election.

During the last legislature he sponsored a bill to really jack up the penalties for trespassing while hunting.  On that, it's notable that he's from a large ranching family in northern Natrona County, although he's not a rancher himself.

The drinks "for anxiety" comment suggests that he probably should be pitied, however, and that he might have some sort of a problem.  

Anyhow, if he goes, and he might have been on the way out due to his role in torpedoing the project north of Bar Nunn anyhow, it may be a good thing for public lands users and sportsmen, depending upon who replaces him.

Natrona County Rep. Allemand charged with DUI in Johnson County

Wyoming House Rep. Bill Allemand Charged With DUI, Says He Will Dispute It

The 2026 Election, 3rd Edition: The Self Inflicted Wound Edition.

And can they recover?

A major turn occured in the Wyoming election when all three of Wyoming's congressional delegation members supported Mike Lee's Deseret Dream to swipe Federal lands for land raping purposes.  The move was hugely, overwhelmingly, unpopular in Wyoming, but the delegation in part assessed the voters dim, and in part, trusted on them to forget.

Right now, it doesn't look like they will.

And the candidate are beginning to line up.  We have, so far:

Governor:

GOP.

Eric Barlow. Barlow is a state senator from the 23rd district and announced earlier this week. So far, he's receiving a lot of accolades from the none Freedom Caucus Republicans and condemnations from the populist Freedom Caucus, which frankly makes him the front runner.  

Brent Bien.  Bien is retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and another member of the recent Wyoming crowd who declares "after sucking on the government tit my whole life I hate the government and know best for people who haven't had such secure jobs as me".  He's on the far right.

Joseph Kibler.  Kibler is a web designer and might as well drop out right now.

Reid Ranser.  Far right gadfly who doomed his chances, which were non existent anyway, by filing a lawsuit which states that he's a homosexual and was slandered by certain GOP figures.  The slander aside, branding yourself as a homosexual is a bad political move in this atmosphere.  He's highly likely not to be the only homosexual running for a statewide office or perhaps in office, but Wyomingites tend not to draw attention to themselves in that manner during an era such as the one we currently live in.

Waiting in the wings are Chuck Gray, who is already campaigning for something on the far right wing of the far right, save when it comes to nuclear power, were the populist are flower children, so he is too.  Holding Gray up is Harriet Hageman, who seems likely to try to run, but whose position in opposition to the Federal lands is likely to sink any campaign of hers, or at least seriously damage it.

Also waiting in the wings is Mark Gordon, who has clearly not wanted Gray to replace him.  With Barlow throwing his broad brim in the ring, he likely won't run now.

August 15, 2025

This is interesting:

Wyoming crowd boos Hageman retort that protections against greenhouse gases based on ‘false science’

Wyoming crowd boos Hageman retort that protections against greenhouse gases based on ‘false science’: U.S. Rep. Hageman's comment didn't go over well in Pinedale, where residents struggled for years to clean up health-threatening pollution from oil and gas drilling.

Pinedale calls itself the "Icebox of the Nation" and the introduction of oil and gas operations near it are relatively new.  Given both of those, it clearly didn't drink the GOP Koolaide on global warming being a fib.

Hageman has so far received rough crewed treatment in Pinedale, Rock Springs, and Laramie. I suspect she would in Casper as well.  I also suspect she might want to start thinking about selling her house in D.C. and looking to move back to her brother's ranch, as she may be out of work next year. 

Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2026, 2026 Election, Climate Change, Harriet Hageman, Petroleum, Wyoming (Pinedale), Wyoming (Sublette County)

Wyoming has been a prime example of "if I make money from it, it must be perfectly okay".  If we could grow big fields of opium here, we'd be loudly in favor of heroin.

Given that, and given that a lot of Wyomingites are imports from warmer regions of the country, people here are huge climate change deniers, even though if you've lived here your whole life its extremely obvious that its going on.  

And Hageman comes from the agricultural which is bizarrely resistant to accepting the reality of climate change, even though if nothing is done, it'll destroy their livelihoods.

So she no doubt thought stepping in front of a Sublette  County audience would mean that the "climate change is a fib" line would be well received.  It wasn't.

Something is finally really starting to change here.  Part of it is that people are waking up to reality, and part of it is that Hageman took a stand for something Wyomingites detest, transfering the Federal lands, and then basically asserted we were dumb for not supporting it ourselves.  She's so all in on these positions, she really can't change them, and stepping in front of audiences makes her situation worse.

August 20, 2025

Congressman Elsie Stephanik was booked off of a New York stage two days ago.

Stephanik likely sacrificed her career for Trump.

Elsie of course crawled into bed with Trump.  She originally was opposed to him.  Harriet Hageman, on the other hand, was never openly opposed to Trump and took the seat of her former friend Liz Cheney opportunistically.

Hageman has had a lot of simple adoring fans since that time, but the bloom is really off the rose.  She was booed in deeply Republican Sublette County last week, and received a hostile crowd in Casper on Monday night.  Indeed, the Casper event was notably not only for the outright hostility to Hageman, but to extent to which a lot of Republicans flatly did not show up leaving a lot of room in the auditorium.

Hageman had her sights set on the Governor's mansion and still might.  If nothing else, she's doubling down on her position on everything.  But that ship has likely sailed, and she stands a good chance, right now, of having to vacate her Congressional seat.

August 29, 2025

And yet. . . 

Joseph Kibler running for governor on promise of ‘being something different

being yet another carpetbagger coming in and complaining of too much bureaucracy, particularly in a state you just moved to, isn't actually different.

September 30, 2025

Sec. Gray has flagged over 2,000 Wyoming voters for County Clerks to investigate s voters who may no longer reside in Wyoming.

This entire topic has been a fictional bee in Gray's bonnet.

Progressive Palestinian American Palestinian State Rep. Ruwa Romman has entered the Georgia Governor's race.

October 22, 2025

The Barlow Effect: Candidates can’t officially join the race till next year, but an unmistakably powerful ingredient has entered the mix, writes columnist Rod Miller.

November 18, 2025

A Federal Court in Texas has blocked the state from using its recently redrawn Congressional District map.

Oops.

This will be appealed, but if the decision is upheld it would mean that the five GOP (probably) seats that the state added won't be, while California, in a recent election, added five.

Oops.

Additionally, early indicators are that Texas Hispanics are following the national tread and are becoming disenchanted with the GOP, so some Texas districts may swing Democratic on their own.

Oops.

All of this could mean that the 2026 election could see the House not only swing Democratic, but perhaps massively so, and that some of the Returning Republicans are no longer big fans of Trump, to which those survivors will be reassessing their loyalty to Trump.

On the last item, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene are in a flat out war with Trump, and Trump is losing.  Greene has gone from one of Trump's most loyal adherents to an outright anti Trump insurgent.

There's a year to go, of course, but Trump is already acting like unstable and clearly under pressure.  Having pulled out all the stops to prevent the release of the Epstein files, he now is claiming to once again support the release, putting the Senate in the hot seat.  If Trump is acting behind the scenes at the Senate, it puts Senators in a terrible spot at the same time that they have the example of Massie and Greene, who aren't being hurt by opposing Trump.

Locally, it'll be interesting to see if Lummis and Hageman remain lashed to the deck of Trump.  I bet Lummis won't.

December 11, 2025

From the New York Times.

Indiana Lawmakers Reject Trump’s New Political Map

Republicans hold an overwhelming majority in the Indiana Senate, but more than a dozen of them defied the president’s wishes, voting against a map aimed at adding Republicans in Congress.

December 19, 2025

Cynthia Lummis will not run for her Senate seat next year.  We can bet that Hageman will run for it and probably already is.  It'd be interesting to see if Gordon runs for the seat.

This means Gray, whose political hopes were dead, will now run for Congress, although I doubt he will get Hageman's seat.  It'll be interesting to see if Stubson runs.

Elise Stefanik is dropping out of the New York Governor's race and will not run for Congress next year.

December 20, 2025

Lots of speculation up in the air following Lummis' surprise announcement that she's giving it up after a single term as Senator, including why she's doing that.

Included in speculative candidates are, as already noted, Gray, Hageman and Gordon.  Degenfelder has also been mentioned, whom I didn't think of.  Degenfelder would have a good chance against any of these three, although I'd prefer Gordon.

Reid Rasner has been mentioned , and I'd guess that he will run. . . and lose in the primary.

Matt Mead has been mentioned as well.

Of course, this shuffling will also bring out the hard right "I worked for the government my entire life but now that I'm retired and on a Federal pension let me run from the far right" candidates. Brent Bien is running for Governor now, but he might take a run at this as it seems Barlow is in such good shape.

With oil declining, the weather being rather weird, and a large percentage of Wyomingites about to lose their healthcare, this election will also present opportunities for moderate Republicans we haven't thought of yet, as well as with conservative Democrats, if any can be found.  I don't think that Karlee Provenza will want to give up her seat in the state legislature, but if Hageman runs for the Senate, which I think she will, and Chuck Gray for the House, which I think he will, Provenza would be an interesting dark horse candidate who might win against Chuck.  Indeed, it's not impossible to imagine Gordon and Provenza in, which would move Wyoming's Congressional delegation overall to the center, as Barrasso will do what he needs to do to keep his job, assuming he'll run again.

An interesting thing to note is that it's quite clear that Liz Cheney was going to run for Enzi's Senate seat when he died, but Lummis took her spot  It seemed pretty clear that there was animosity between the two because of that.  In spite of all the MAGA hatred of Cheney now, she was a very popular Congressman up until she failed to bow to Trump and took him on.  Had she won that seat, she'd still be in the Senate today.

The spectacular fall of Elise Stefanik is quite notable, and should serve as a warning to the flag of convenience politicians. Stefanik hitched her wagon to Trump and failed to get what she wanted.  Now she's dropping out of politics, for awhile.

Stefanik made an incredibly bad set of calculations and more or less sold her soul, Marco Rubio style, for power, except she lost power, rather than gain it.  She'll reemerge, I'm pretty sure, after Trump is out of office, banking on Americans having short political memory.  My prediction on her is that she, like Rubio, will declare they never really loved Trump.

Cont:

And we are in fact off. There are two filed candidates.

One is the predictable Reid Rasner.  Rasner took a pounding in the last election trying to run to the right of John Barrasso, and he'll go down in flames again here.

The other is Jimmy Skovgard.  I checked his website and have no idea what he stands for. He has a blog, with poor production values, and perhaps if I'd waded through all of it I'd know more, but I didn't.

I suspect his campaign will likewise go nowhere.

December 23, 2025

Lummis not running again changes 2026 political strategies: From Miss Frontier to the U.S. Senate, columnist Kerry Drake writes, Lummis has had remarkable success in state and federal offices.

With this entry, we close out this edition. 

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 2nd Edition: The early season.

Labels: 2026 Election, Carpetbaggers, Chuck Gray, Cynthia Lummis, Elon Musk, Errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum, Harriet Hageman, homosexuality, Hypocrisy, Lies, Politics, Populism, Republican Party, Sex, The Big Ugly, Wyoming

This Trump nominee wants to liquidate public lands

This Trump nominee wants to liquidate public lands: Steve Pearce, Trump’s nominee to run the BLM, has worked to privatize and undermine our public lands, writes Aaron Weiss.

Local Lookout: Perils facing public lands | Powell planning commission protest | Pig wrestling comeback?

Local Lookout: Perils facing public lands | Powell planning commission protest | Pig wrestling comeback?: A Sublette County forum rates its top three risks to public lands and wildlife. A Powell planning commissioner resigns in protest over a decision to dilute employee protections. The pandemic put an end to pig wrestling at the Teton County Fair, but that could change.

Ezra Klein looks at the state of the Democrats. . twice.

The Ezra Klein show recently ran two really interesting vlog episodes on why the Democratic Party is in the dumpster, even as the Republican Party makes the entire country a raging dumpster fire.  They're instructive, but in the case of the first one, not for the reason the guest likely hoped for.

It wasn't all that long ago, we should note, that political scientists had declared that the GOP doomed to demographic extinction.  It was, and is, a small tent party.  The party needed to reach out, it was told, and bring in all the people in the Democratic camp.  Long time readers here, of which there are likely very few, will recall that I predicated that some of the demographic  analysis was flat out wrong, and that Hispanics in particular would start moving into the Republican Party.

I was right.  

Now we live in the opposite world.  People hate the Republican Party but they hate the Democratic Party more.  Really a new party is needed, one that doesn't see global warming as a fib but which opposed abortion, for example, would have a lot of appeal.  But that's a post for some other time.

Let's look at what the experts have to say.  First, as it was first in time, is the interview with  Suzanne Mettler, a political scientist at Cornell and co-author of the new book “Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy"

The interview is here.

I could tell in listening to it that Klein thinks the book is wrong, and while I haven't read it, I know it is, if it espouses the same views that Mettler did in her interview.  She looks at everything economically and that's about it. Social issues don't mean anything.

Well, I lived through this and saw a Wyoming that had a large, but minority, Democratic Party almost completely die.  Most of the major active Democrats in the party started to move to the Republican Party during the Clinton Administration and that trickle became a flood.  All sorts of respected "traditional" elder Republicans in Wyoming were once Democrats.  They left as it increasingly became impossible to be a centrist or conservative Democrat.  There's no room for a pro life Democrat, for instance, in the party anymore.  Once homosexual marriages, transgenderism, and showing up at rallies with blue hair became the norm, the normal largely dropped out and won't come back.

That's what killed the Democrats in the West.

This interview with Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, is much better as Abbot is realistic and not hopelessly clueless, as Mettler seems to be:

Abbot actually admits that he isn't sure if the Democrats can come back from political exile in rural areas, but the examples he gives of people running from the outside are excellent.  Nebraska equivalent of Wyoming's John Barrasso, Deb Fischer, provides an interesting example as she nearly went down in defeat to independent Dan Osborn.

Osborn's race is really instructive as he wasn't a Democrat, but called bullshit on a lot of Fischer's politics.  Osborn himself is a working man, and he's pretty conservative.

And there's the real lesson.

Democrats right now can't get any traction in rural areas as frankly nobody can stand to vote for anyone they are putting up, most of the time, and then when they do put up a good candidate, the party's platform kills them.  The Democratic Party became, quite frankly, the Transgendered Vegan Party, and that's going nowhere.  It not only became that, it can't get away from it.  Look at any protest of Trump's policies that's a public one, and you'll see the usual suspects.  If there isn't a hugely overweight middle aged woman with blue hair, you just aren't looking hard enough.

Indeed, this has become so much the case that that left wing protests that are popular now are sometimes all Republican.  In Natrona County the recent Radiant Energy No Nuke protests were lead by Republicans including a Wyoming Freedom Caucus member of the legislature.  Chuck Gray came up and lead his support, sounding like he was Chuck Gray from Greenpeace.  If Democrats can't own that issue . . . .

There seems to be a little waking up, but only a little.  Public lands is what did it.

Back in the 1980s, when I switched from the Republican Party into the Democratic Party (I left the Dems with the great flood of us who couldn't hack the weirdness), public lands and attention to environmental issues is what did it.  People worship Ronald Reagan now, but James Watt, his Secretary of the Interior, was an Evangelical Christian zealot in favor of ravaging the land now, as he was certain that the Second Coming was going to be very soon.  That land ravaging instinct remains very strong in the GOP and recently came out in spades.

Wyoming Democrat Karlee Provenza picked right up on that and came out in front.  The Democrats need to do more of that.  Land issues are near and ear to Wyomingites and the Republicans are very vulnerable on them.  That issue alone might, if really exploited, bring the Democrats back if their campaigns were really strategic.  

Some of that strategy has to be getting really personal.  Sure, Hageman is for turning public lands over for sale. . she's from a "fourth generation" ranching family, and the ranchers always believe they'll get the land, even though they won't.  Same for Lummis  Sure, Dr. John is for it, he's a Pennsylvanian not a Wyomingite.  Did you every see him at your favorite fishing hole?

But one issue alone is a risky proposition. What they also need to do is dump the weirdness.  Being lashed to transgenderism is a completely losing proposition.  A Democratic candidate is going to be asked about it . . and could really make hay on it.

But only if they're willing to fight dirty, which the GOP definitely is.  But they're not prepared for the same.

For instance, if a public lands Democrat was running for the House, and asked about this issue, we would expect the usually milk toast fall in line answer they normally give.  But if they said, "oh gosh no, that's a mental illness and it needs to be treated that way, and women's sports and role in society needs to be protected. . . " it'd leave the Republicans flat footed.

They'd be on their heels, however, if it went further.  If you added "and by the way, I constantly hear our GOP talk about being pro family.  I don't know how pro family you can be if you are jacking up their cost of living and particularly their insurance rantes, but what about that family stuff?  Hageman's been married for years and she ain't got any children. . nephews and nieces aren't the same thing, and Chuck Gray is 36 years old and unmarried. . .what's up with that?  Why I think a decent man ought to marry a decent woman young and have some kids. . . and when that doesn't happen that's because they aren't focused on families, darn it".

Yeah, that's nasty, but how do they reply?  It is the case that Hageman and her husband have never had children.  Maybe there's a medical reason, but maybe it was a focus on careers and using pharmaceuticals to avoid it.  If so, that ain't very populist Republican.  And Chuck Gray is 36 years old and unmarried.  I know that he's a Mass attending Catholic, and I'm not accusing him of any intimate immorality, but I will note that by age 36 men are usually married, or in our current society, living with some female "partner".  Gray doesn't appear to fit either of these which is odd, as it demonstrates something about his character, perhaps simply an unlikeable character, that's keeping it from occurring, unless he just doesn't want to get married, which is unlikely.

FWIW, as I'm a bit connected, I know that Gray dated women while living in Casper.  Obviously those relationships didn't work out.  I'm not claiming he's light in his loafers.

I will say, however, that once you get out there, there are die hard right wing Republicans in this state who are subject to some unwelcome attention on their personal lives.  Is that fair?  Well, if you are calling for suppressing certain groups, and you are part of them, you owe people an explanation.

Which gets back to the inevitable question that comes up now, "what about gay marriage".  Again, it's easy for a Republican to say "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman".  A Democratic coming back with "so do I, and I believe that union arises once. . . what do you think about that Dr. John. . . and is that why you abandoned your original faith?".  

Nasty.  But Dr. John wouldn't have a very good answer for it.

Abortion is always going to come up.  Abortion is the issue that ultimately drove a lot of us out of the Democratic Party, including me.  The Democrats should simply abandon a position on it and let candidates stake out their own ground.  There remain a few pro life Democrats out there, and to be one shouldn't be an anathema. 

And, indeed, if that was allowed, it allows uncomfortable questions to be asked.  Republicans claim to be pro life, but now their massively in favor of IVF, which kills most of the embrioes that it creates.  Current Democrats can't really ask about that without hypocrisy.  A pro life Democrat could.

Can the Democrats do all that?

Probably not.

Local Lookout: Repealing public lands rule | Reconsidering hate crimes law | Retooling state land lease

Local Lookout: Repealing public lands rule | Reconsidering hate crimes law | Retooling state land lease: Local governments are looking at repealing rules ranging from prioritizing conservation on BLM land to outlawing hate crimes. Leases also are front and center with Park County denying a clinic’s lease due to liability and Albany County expanding a state land lease to oversee recreation and wildlife habitat.

 

U.S. Supreme Court denies taking on corner crossing case

The Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Corner Crossing Case.

 

Today, the Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from Iron Bar Holdings on the ruling by the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals that no laws were broken in 2021 by four Missouri hunters who moved between two public land parcels at a shared corner. The Court’s decision leaves the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals’ ruling intact. 

There are limits to the 10th Circuit ruling, and TRCP encourages hunters and anglers to conduct their own research and be familiar with trespass laws. 

TRCP remains dedicated to defending public access while respecting private property rights. Legal clarity is important for both sportspeople and landowners.

We appreciate your continued support as TRCP works to keep public lands accessible while respecting private property. Together, we can protect these rights for future generations. 

Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Alliance. 

A Wyoming Party, and some other thoughts. We're on our own.

Jane Banner: Shouldn't we wait for back up?

Ben: This isn't the land of waiting for back up. This is the land of you're on your own.

Wind River. 

In the film Wind River, set on the Wind River Indian Reservation, Tribal policeman Ben and FBI agent Jane Banner are confronted with gunfire while investigating a crime and have the exchange noted above.

Wyomingites love that quote, and there's a lot to it.*

Not only is there a lot to it, its very much the case regarding politics in this state.  Our Congressional delegation doesn't support or represent us on many of the existential matters at play in the state.  Not one darned bit.

And they're not going to.  Just as in Wind River the two policemen, and an Animal Damage officer, were  under assault by those that they were going to have to take on, on their own, so are the residents of this state.

The other day I saw a lifelong member of Wyoming's Republican Party, who once held positions within it, decried. Wyoming's Congressional Representation as "bought and paid for".  This followed, by a period of a couple of years, a similar claim by a former significant Wyoming politicians that I somewhat know. Another person I know describe all three of Wyoming's Congressional delegation as "ass kissing sycophants".

There's something to all of that.

The vast bulk of their large campaign war chests comes from out of state money.  Compared to it, the money from  Wyomingites doesn't even amount to a drop in the bucket.  It's more like a drop in a 55 gallon barrel.  Wyoming public media, in a news story on the topic, reported:

JU: OpenSecrets reported that Rep. Harriet Hageman received $15,000 from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Sen. John Barrasso has received over $70,000 from a private equity firm based in New York and California [from 2019 to 2024]. And Sen. Cynthia Lummis received over $100,000 from the Club for Growth, a conservative PAC [from 2019 to 2024]. In the face of more powerful organizations like those, how do individual or local donors in Wyoming make their voice more impactful? Or their donation more impactful?

Some group calling itself the Americans for Prosperity have been running non stop adds on social media thanking John Barrasso for his role in the Big Ugly.

Who are these people and organizations?  Wyomingites?

Not hardly.  Wikipedia says of them:

Americans for Prosperity (AFP), founded in 2004, is a libertarian conservative political advocacy group in the United States affiliated with brothers Charles Koch and the late David Koch.[6] As the Koch family's primary political advocacy group, it has been viewed as one of the most influential American conservative organizations.

Club for Growth is a radical right wing economic outfit as well.

American Israel Public Affairs Committee:  What does have to do with the average Wyomingite?

Not freaking much.

In a couple of place around town, there are billboard featuring all three of our Congress people with the Tetons in the background thanking all three for standing with "American Energy", by which they no doubt mean petroleum and coal, not wind, solar and nuclear (as we've recently learned locally).

The bigger problem is that the Congressional delegation flat out ignores the views of Wyomingites on some major issues, public lands being one.  Wyomingites are overwhelmingly opposed to the Federal lands going to the states, and are opposed to public lands being sold.  That well known fact hasn't done anything to keep our Congressional delegation from supporting those things, and it's done nothing whatsoever to keep the Wyoming GOP from backing land transfers.

Dr. John Barrasso, who after all is a East Coaster and looks like one, has his head so far up Trump's ass on a daily basis that he can examine Trump's tonsils from the backside.  He has no use for Wyoming anymore.  My guess is that he's in his last term as he knows that he's not going to be the Senate Majority Leader so being a fascist flunky will be his career achievement, and he's okay with that.

Who knows what's up with Lummis.  She's always been a Cheshire cat in the first place, with a sort of snarky smile. She goes her own way, and that way isn't yours.

Harriet Hageman is the most honest of the bunch. Sure, she's stuck in the Powder River Campaign, but her views, while not the same as most of hours, re honestly  and openly held.

Chuck Gray?  Gray is just using Wyoming, that's about it.  And his politics bend with the wind.  He's a far right winger Greenpeacer if you can make sense of that, and he's  hoping you can't and will yell at you until you are distracted.

Right now, the Wyoming GOP is the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is packed with people who are not from Wyoming, and how have brought their dumbass ideas with them and want to impose them on Wyoming.

They're succeeding in doing so. There's really no saving the GOP in the state. The old GOP, which was uniquely Wyoming in view, is dead, taking the path of the old Wyoming Democratic Party, which did as well, and which died first.

In its place we have the Dixiecrats and those whose one and only value is their pocket books.

They need to go.

But it would appear unlikely that they can be dislodged from the current GOP, put on plane, and shipped back to the their home states, like they should be.

The only two things the two failed parties agree on is that you should never vote for a third party.  That's how we got into this mess.

So maybe it's time for some new parties not beholding to the crap these parties are.

And why not local parties?

Let's start with something that should be clear to all, but really seems not to be.

There's nothing American or Constitutional about a "two party system". The founders, while they rapidly fell into parties, didn't approve of them at all.  A primary system, such as we and most other states have, is existentially anti democratic and existentially unconstitutional.  They're nothing more than state funded party elections that are geared to conspire against any person from a third party, or just an independent running.  Primary elections would make sense only if no party affiliation was noted on the ballot at all.  Get 1,000 signatures to get you on, perhaps, and you are on.

Moreover, it's really time to allow for recalls of Congressional representation.  If we had that, all three of our Congressional people would be facing a recall election right now.  John Barrasso, who earnestly believes whatever you believe as you believe it, and even more than you do, would now be leading armed raids into Utah against Mike Lee if that was the case, rather than spending all of his time kissing Trump's ass.

Suffice it to say, we're not being served well.

What would a party that actually reflected Wyoming's values look like?

Well, of course, in stating something like that, I'm inevitably going to post what a party that reflected my values, mostly, would look like.

• It'd protect public lands.
• It'd have a land ethic.
• It'd protect democratic values, as in voting.
• It'd realize that science isn't a fib, and that some things have to adjust because of scientific reality.
• It would have a tax system that accepted that out of state imports with huge amounts of cash should be taxed.

Frankly, it'd look a lot like what the GOP here used to look like.

It's be overall conservative, without a doubt, but conservative in a Wyoming sort of Way, not in a Dixiecrat sort of way.

Most Wyomingites who are from Wyoming, save those who had drank the MAGA/Charlie Kirk Kool aide, would likely vote for it.

We're sure not going to be saved by the Democrats. They'll do anything they can to wreck their own chances at the ballot box. And we're not going to be saved by the Republicans either.  The GOP has wiped out the real party and put in place a party that Nathan Bedford Forest would be proud of.

We're on our own.

Footnotes:

*I'll confess that I've done a lot of legal work on the Wind River Reservation, and it haunts me.  This is a really good move, and I've watched it twice in the theatre, but I can't get through it again.  May the perpetual light shine upon many there.

Going Feral: The Feral Week.

Going Feral: Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, September 26, 1915. Wab.: 

Colorado Wolf Debate Heats Up Over Claims Diseased Animals Were Released

 

Colorado Wolf Debate Heats Up Over Claims Diseased Animals Were Released

Thursday, September 25, 2025

We Need To Talk About How We Can Effectively Advocate For Better Public Lands Policy Why the pro-public lands world’s inability to communicate accurately is such a problem, and the steps we can all take to do it better

 

We Need To Talk About How We Can Effectively Advocate For Better Public Lands Policy

Why the pro-public lands world’s inability to communicate accurately is such a problem, and the steps we can all take to do it better

Report: More than 99% of public comments opposed to end roadless rule

 

Report: More than 99% of public comments opposed to end roadless rule

Wednesday, September 24, 2025

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: These Hunters' Deaths Hit Me Hard

Southern Rockies Nature Blog: These Hunters' Deaths Hit Me Hard: Search and rescue volunteers are briefed before heading out. (Conejos County Sheriff's Office) The search for two missing bowhunters, An...

This is terrible news, to say the least.

When I first heard of these two men dying, it was by way of a headline.  As I was extremely busy at the time, I didn't read deeper into the story.  I frankly assumed they had succumbed due to hypothermia, and that they were likely inexperienced outdoorsmen.

I learned more about it sage chicken hunting with a companion, who had looked into the story more.  He revealed that in fact they were experienced outdoorsmen, but we both assumed that they had died due to hypothermia.  We assumed, frankly, that they'd stepped out for what they thought would be a shorter trip and were caught in a bad situation at which point they couldn't address the onset of the condition.

It turns out we were wrong.  It was a lightning strike.

I've been afraid of lightning my entire life, and a lot of that is due to living an outdoor life.  From my earliest years I can recall being fascinated with lightning, but also fearing it.  My earliest recollection of an electrical strike close by was when I was a child, looking out our picture window. and saw a bolt of lightning hit the ground right in front of the house and arc over the street, as a car passed under it.

My mother related that her grandfather had actually been hit by lightning observing an electrical storm out the back window of a house in St. Lambert, Quebec.  He was fine, but that  might have made an early impression with me.  My father, an avid outdoorsman, didn't mess with lightening at all, although he would continue to fish well past the point he should as electrical storms approached.  The childhood step father of a friend of mine was killed on the golf course by lightning.  The father of a gaggle of girls who where my contemporaries was killed on horseback when struck by lightning.  

I had plenty of reasons as a kid to fear lightning.

As an adult, I've seen lightning strike a human occupied thing when I saw a blot strike a boat in Alcova Reservoir.  I was far enough away that I don't know what happened to the people in it.  While living in Laramie, and going to law school, I had a bolt of lightning strike a power line right above the point I was at as I was hurriedly walking home, hoping to beat the storm.  It blew me to the ground, and I was deaf in one ear for about a week.  Also in Laramie, I remember being up in the high country elk hunting and briefly conversing with a mounted hunter as a storm started to roll in.  The air grew electrick and came in contact, somehow, with the horses steel ringlets on his bridle, causing his ears to shoot up, and a visible electrical current pass between the tips of his ears, just before he reared around and charged down the mountain.

Storms will appear and surprise you.

In the sticks, I watch the weather like a hawk.  It's not snow I'm afraid of being caught in, it's an electrical storm.  I'll abandon a place early if I think it looks like such a storm is rolling in.

Electrical storms in the high country are particularly dangerous. Due to the terrain, they roll up at you before you can appreciate them, and they are very frequent.  High altitude afternoon thunderstorms are a norm in mountainous terrain.

Added to that, in spite of Donald Trump and His Confederacy of Clowns, climate change has extended the summer and fall and that's making traditional activities in late fall more dangerous in various ways.  I'm not terribly familiar with Southern Colorado, but I can claim some familiarity with Northern Colorado and lots of familiarity with all of Wyoming.  This time of year, say thirty or more years ago, storm above 6,000 feet here were snowstorms, not rain storms.  We worried about being snowed out, or snowed in, not rain.  Now thanks to a desperate belief on the part of some that things aren't changing, or it isn't our fault, things are changing.

Wide Open Spaces reported their cause of death as being surprising.  I'm not terribly surprised, as I've had too many close calls with lightning even while being careful.  I'll merely note, it pays to be careful out there. . . really careful.

But sometimes, that won't save you.

Regarding the tragic deaths of Andrew Porter and Ian Stasko:

Eternal rest grant unto them, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon them. May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen. 

Wyomingites with deep conservation roots oppose axing Forest Service Roadless Rule

Wyomingites with deep conservation roots oppose axing Forest Service Roadless Rule: Although the state government loathes the Forest Service regulation, many residents value the wild lands and wildlife it protects.

‘Judas elk’ to help target Jackson Hole ‘suburban elk,’ easing pressure on Yellowstone migrants

‘Judas elk’ to help target Jackson Hole ‘suburban elk,’ easing pressure on Yellowstone migrants: Research reveals that animals that summer on ranchland and in residential subdivisions near town pile up on the National Elk Refuge's southern end — a trait that will help wildlife managers steer hunters toward the problematic cohort.

Tuesday, September 23, 2025

Coroner: Lightning Strike Killed Elk Hunters Found Dead In Colorado

 

Coroner: Lightning Strike Killed Elk Hunters Found Dead In Colorado

Monday, September 22, 2025

Blog Mirror: Browning Auto 5 Shotgun Review: Still One of the Greatest Semiautos of All Time

 

Browning Auto 5 Shotgun Review: Still One of the Greatest Semiautos of All Time

Sunday, September 21, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Outside Just Fired Me Because Of My ...

Lex Anteinternet: Blog Mirror: Outside Just Fired Me Because Of My ...:   

Blog Mirror: Outside Just Fired Me Because Of My Politics I'm hardly Jimmy Kimmel, but that's also a reason this should worry you

 

Outside Just Fired Me Because Of My Politics

I'm hardly Jimmy Kimmel, but that's also a reason this should worry you