Charlie Kirk and the hypocrisy of the Wyoming GOP

Charlie Kirk and the hypocrisy of the Wyoming GOP: A recently passed resolution to limit free speech demonstrates how little the state Republican Party believes in the First Amendment, writes columnist Rod Miller.

Monday ,November 22, 1875. The death of Vice President Henry Wilson.

Ardent opponent of slavery and career politician Vice President Henry Wilson died in office at age 63.

GENERAL ORDERS, NO. 97

WAR DEPARTMENT,

ADJUTANT-GENERAL'S OFFICE

I. The following order announces the decease of Henry Wilson, Vice-President of the United States:

EXECUTIVE MANSION,

Washington, November 22, 1875.

It is with profound sorrow that the President has to announce to the people of the United States the death of the Vice-President, Henry Wilson, who died in the Capitol of the nation this morning.

The eminent station of the deceased, his high character, his long career in the service of his State and of the Union, his devotion to the cause of freedom, and the ability which he brought to the discharge of every duty stand conspicuous and are indelibly impressed on the hearts and affections of the American people.

In testimony of respect for this distinguished citizen and faithful public servant the various Departments of the Government will be closed on the day of the funeral, and the Executive Mansion and all the Executive Departments in Washington will be draped with badges of mourning for thirty days.

The Secretaries of War and of the Navy will issue orders that appropriate military and naval honors be rendered to the memory of one whose virtues and services will long be borne in recollection by a grateful nation.

U. S. GRANT

By the President:

HAMILTON FISH,

Secretary of State.

II. On the day next succeeding the receipt of this order at each military post the troops will be paraded at 10 o'clock a. m. and this order read to them.

The national flag will be displayed at half-staff.

At dawn of day thirteen guns will be fired. Commencing at 12 o'clock noon seventeen minute guns will be fired, and at the close of the day the national salute of thirty-seven guns.

The usual badge of mourning will be worn by officers of the Army and the colors of the several regiments will be put in mourning for the period of three months.

By order of the Secretary of War:

E. D. TOWNSEND, Adjutant-General.

He had been born Jeremiah Jones Colbath and born to extremely impoverished circumstances, growing up partially as an indentured servant to a farmer in his region.  At age 21 he changed his name, although the reasons really aren't known.  He became a shoemaker, and then entered politics as a Whig.  He was one of the organizers of the Free Soil Party in 1852 and became a U.S. Senator in 1855.  He served in the Union Army during the Civil War and exited the war back into politics as an advocate of the rights  of freed slaves.

With his death, under the law at the, the office of Vice Presidency fell vacant until the next General Election, that of 1877.

On the same day:

Executive Order—Expansion of Ute Indian Reservation Territory

November 22, 1875

EXECUTIVE MANSION, November 22, 1875.

It is hereby ordered that the tract of country in the Territory of Colorado lying within the following-described boundaries, viz: Commencing at the northeast corner of the present Ute Indian Reservation, as defined in the treaty of March 2, 1868 (Stats, at Large, vol. 15, p. 619); thence running north on the 107th degree of longitude to the first standard parallel north; thence west on said first standard parallel to the boundary line between Colorado and Utah; thence south with said boundary to the northwest corner of the Ute Indian Reservation; thence east with the north boundary of the said reservation to the place of beginning, be, and the same hereby is, withdrawn from sale and set apart for the use of the several tribes of Ute Indians, as an addition to the present reservation in said Territory.

U. S. GRANT.

Last edition:

Saturday, November 20, 1875. Winking at collision in the Black Hills and the Las Cuevas War.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, 1877, Army, Black Hills, boats and ships, Crime, Great Sioux War, Las Cuevas War, Mexico, Philip Sheridan, Sioux, South Dakota, Texas, Texas Rangers, William Tecumseh Sherman, Wyoming

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.

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

And now they're losing Boebert. . .

 

Rep. Lauren Boebert

@RepBoebert

·

19h

I will be voting to repeal this ridiculous policy that allows 8 specific senators to use taxpayer dollars sue the DOJ. This garbage should have never been included in a clean government funding bill.

One of those Senators was Wyoming's own Cynthia Lummis.

Really makes a fellow proud, um, or well. . . 

Tuesday, November 8, 1910. The Republican Party loses the House.

The Republican Party lost control of the House of Representatives.  The 62nd Congress would have 230 Democrats, 162 Republicans, one Progressive Republican, now an extinct species, and the first Socialist ever elected to Congress, incoming U.S. Representative Victor L. Berger of Milwaukee.

Overall, politics were swinging leftward, with the Democrats, which had been the conservative party, beginning their slow migration to the left.

Last edition:

Monday, November 7, 1910. Dawn of commercial aviation.

Labels: 1910, 1910s, Aircraft, boats and ships, Royal Canadian Navy

Thursday, November 4, 1875. A Proclamation of Thanksgiving.

Proclamation of Thanksgiving.

BY J. A. CAMPBELL GOVERNOR OF THE TERRITORY OF WYOMING.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES HAVING DESIGNATED

Thursday, the 27th day of November, 1873,

As a day of Thanksgiving and Praise, I recommend the faithful observance of the day by all the people of Wyoming, in accordance with the usual and time-honored custom.

"GIVE THANKS UNTO THE LORD, FOR HE IS GOOD, FOR HIS MERCY ENDURETH FOREVER."

IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand, and caused the Great Seal of the Territory to be affixed. Done at Cheyenne, this, Fourth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and seventy-three.

J. A. CAMPBELL.

[seal] * GREAT SEAL * TERRITORY OF WYOMING [/seal]

By the Governor:

JASON B. BROWN,

Secretary of Territory.

 

Territorial Governor Campbell was of course a Republican, but not of the type that Republicans would now recognize.  He was a political liberal and a backer of women's suffrage.  He's served in the Union Army as a general during the Civil War and died in 1880 at the mere age of 44. 

After leaving his post as the Territorial Governor, he served in various capacities in the Federal government for the remainder of his short life.  Campbell County Wyoming is probably named after him, although there's some dispute on that.

Last edition:

Wednesday, November 3, 1875. A fateful day.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, 1876, Frontier Wyoming, Indian Wars, Native American Heritage Month, Native Americans, The Frontier West, U.S. Grant

Thursday, November 3, 1910. La Matanza

Twenty-year-old ranch hand Antonio Rodriguez was lynched by being burned alive by a mob in Rocksprings Texas after having been accused of murdering a "white woman".  His murder in Texas sparked a reaction in Mexico, which was on the verge of revolution as it was, leading to boycotts on U.S. businesses and partially leading to the Plan of San Diego.

President Taft denied that the US was considering annexting Panama.

Interesting, isn't it?  The U.S. was in its high colonial era, having just beaten Span in the Spanish American War, and yet it didn't annext Cuba and it wasn't threatening to annex Panama, where it had constructed the canal.  Oh for the days when Republican Presidents weren't threatening to annex everything in site.

Of course, McKinley, Roosevelt and Taft weren't demented narcissists.

Former Democratic Mayor of New York City, the city's second Roman Catholic mayor, died at age 55.

Last edition:

Tuesday, November 1, 1910. The Pale of Settlement.

Labels: 1880s, 1884, 1910, 1910s, Belarus, Czar Nicholas II, Judaism, Poland, Russia, The Pale of Settlement, Ukraine

A 2026 Election Storm Warning.

Donald Trump attempted to steal the 2020 Presidential Election and failed.  Having won the 2024 election, he's now working on stealing the 2026 mid terms.

The 2026 election will be the critical one.  Republicans are going to try to use everything they can think of, legitimately, nad illegitimately, to control the outcome of the 2026 midterms.  If they fail, they'll refuse to accept the results.

The 2026 election may well prove to be the election that breaks the republic.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 106th Edition A series of Zeitgeist predictions about New York City.

Mamdani is obviously going to win.

Republicans will freak out.  

Mike "Smarmy Smile" Johnson will be in full bullshit mode for weeks.  "I'm not keeping the House in perpetual recess because I'm afraid of the Epstein files but because a Communist Marxist Islamist has been elected to Mayor in New York and that means that we can't look at the Epstein files".  

Trump will wax poetic, "My Mommy, that's what I call him, mommy. . . I loved my mommy, she was from Scotland, where they invented golf.  Are we in Mar A Lago, no, well, the Communists, Marxists, Monarchical Islamist don't want me to build a ballroom, that's because they can't dance and their legs are thin. The Wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things tops are made out of rubber their bottoms are made out of springs Their bouncey, trouncey, ouncey, pouncey fun, fun, fun, fun, fun But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm the only one. Tiggers are cuddily fellows Tiggers are awfully sweet everyone el'es is jealous That's why I repeat and repeat The wonderful thing about Tiggers Is Tiggers are marvelous chaps They're loaded with vim and vigor they love to leap in your laps They're jumpy, bumpy, clumpy, thumpy fun fun fun fun fun But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers Is I'm the only one I-I-I'm the only...-oof Ouch.  I've decided to kill the entire population of South America. . . "

John Thune will say something, with an earnest looking John Barrasso behind him, but nobody will remember what it was, as nobody was paying attention to him to start with.

And then a weird thing will happen.

Mamdani will probably govern more or less from the center, as he'll have to, which is likely to make his administration a success.

Which is the biggest Republican nightmare of all.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 105th Edition. What's up with the rush on the White House?

Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2025 White House Vandalization, Architecture, Catholic, Christianity, Democratic Party, Illiberal Democracy, National Conservatism, The Second Trump Administration, Vandals, Washington DC, Wyoming, Zeitgeist