Lenin suffered a third stroke in less than a year, a clear sign that his remaining time was short.
Thirty members of the NYPD were revealed to be members of the Ku Klux Klan.
The United Kingdom, in a bill introduced by Lady Astor, rose the in premises drinking age from 14 for beer and 16 for hard alcohol to 18. It was the first bill to be introduced by a woman in parliament.
British alcohol consumption, normally associated with beer, has varied considerably over a century, as reflected in this directly linked in graph fro a parliamentary report.
As can be seen, wine has increased considerably since 1930, but then it had large popularity early in the 20th Century before dropping off. World War One, likely due to wartime shortages, made a huge denti in British drinking which leveled it off, but it's climbed steadily since the 1950s.
Another British look from 1800 to 1930.
That reported noted:
History of alcohol consumption
1550-1650: commercialisation of domestic brewing industry; tobacco a commodity of mass consumption and an accompaniment to drinking; increased market for French wines—higher per head until present day [14]
1650-1750: the period 'when Europeans took to soft drugs', including coffee, tea and chocolate; the intermittent gin craze from the 1730s to the 1750s masks a stabilisation or decline in alcohol consumption over the period.[15] Beer was promoted by many anti-gin campaigners as the patriotic (and sober) alternative to gin. Despite this, beer consumption fell significantly throughout the 18th century, largely due to the increasing popularity of tea, coffee and chocolate .[16]
1750 to 1850: fall in alcohol consumption up to about 1840, particularly wine, increase in tea, which replaced beer as the popular staple of every day consumption.[17]
1850 to late 19th century: large increase in consumption; the 'consumption of beer, wine and spirits all peaked around 1875. The consumption of tea also grew'. These trends were associated with rising living standards.[18]
Late 19th century to mid-20th century: decline in consumption per head—associated with temperance movement, alternative leisure activities, including public parks and libraries.[19]
Mid-20th century onwards: increase in consumption from 3.5 litres per head to 9.5 (with slight falls in the early 1990s and 2005 onwards)
That report concluded:
Conclusions and recommendations
29. The history of the consumption of alcohol over the last 500 years has been one of fluctuations, of peaks and troughs. From the late 17th century to the mid-19th the trend was for consumption per head to decline despite brief periods of increased consumption such as the gin craze. From the mid- to the late 19th century there was a sharp increase in consumption which was followed by a long and steep decline in consumption until the mid 20th century.
30. The variations in consumption are associated both with changes in affordability and availability, but also changes in taste. Alternative drinks such as tea and alternative pastimes affected consumption. Different groups drank very different amounts. Government has played a significant role both positive and negative, for example in reducing consumption in the First World War as well as in stimulating the 18th century gin craze by encouraging the consumption of cheap gin instead of French brandy.
31. From the 1960s consumption rose again. At its lowest levels in the 1930s and -40s annual per capita consumption was about 3 litres of pure alcohol; by 2005 it was over 9 litres. These changes are, as in past centuries, associated with changing fashion and an increase in affordability, availability and expenditure on marketing. Just as Government policy played a part in encouraging the gin craze, successive Government policies have played a part in encouraging the increase in alcohol consumption over the last 50 years. Currently over 10 million adults drink more than the recommended limits. These people drink 75% of all the alcohol consumed. 2.6 million adults drink more than twice the recommended limits. The alcohol industry emphasises that these figures represent a minority of the population; health professionals stress that they are a very large number of people who are putting themselves at risk. We share these concerns.
32. One of the biggest changes over the last 60 years has been in the drinking habits of young people, including students. While individual cases of student drunkenness are regrettable and cannot be condoned, we consider that their actions are quite clearly a product of the society and culture to which they belong. The National Union of Students and the universities themselves appear to recognise the existence of a student binge drinking culture, but all too often their approach appears much too passive and tolerant. We recommend that universities take a much more active role in discouraging irresponsible drinking amongst students. They should ensure that students are not subjected to marketing activity that promotes dangerous binge drinking. The first step must be for universities to acknowledge that they do indeed have a most important moral "duty of care" to their students, and for them to take this duty far more seriously than they do at present.
33. Since 2004 there has been a slight fall in total consumption but it is unclear whether this represents a watershed or a temporary blip as in the early 1990s.
The British government has been actively working in recent years to address British drinking.
Now the GOP leadership has come out with a condemnation of Cynthia Lummis for her vote in the Senate on the bill which statutorily adopted the holding of Obergefell, thereby protecting same gender unions as marriages from state revocation. Lummis, by voting the way she did, was likely demonstrating her uncanny ability to switch directions and tack with the winds in advance of their shifting, but the local GOP isn't happy about it and passed a resolution condemning her actions.
All of this somewhat demonstrates that the GOP organization remains solidly very right wing, but its influence isn't extending out as far as it likely thought it would. The host of really populist bills in the current legislature have not done well, and the new populist firebrands have not extended much influence so far.
February 14, 2024
HB 104 allowing the taking of predatory animals at night has passed both houses but was amended by the House of Representatives to include laser sighting systems, and so is back to the Senate for concurrence.
Frankly, as a hunter, I feel that this bill is a bad technological trend. Probably an inevitable one, but one hunters will regret.
HB131 allowing for online sports wagering, amended to require licenses and permits, passed both houses.
The Cowboy State Journal did an article on teenage marriages in the state which was somewhat interesting, with this coming up in the context of HB 7. The article noted, and I quote:
The Busy Teen Wedding Year
In Department of Health data spanning from 1978 to recent months, the peak year for underage marriages was 1980. There were 670 teens who married that year. Three of them were 14 years old, 30 were 15, 217 were 16 and 370 were 17.
13 And Younger
In only four years since 1978 have people 13 and younger received marriage licenses in Wyoming.
Those years were 1978, when one person 13 or younger was married; 1979, when there were two; 1987 (one); and 1995 (one).
Age 14
There were, however, 20 years in which 14-year-olds married in Wyoming since 1978. The most recent of those was in 2012, when one 14-year-old was married. There have been 37 people married in the state at age 14 overall since 1978.
The year with the most 14-year-olds wedded was 1979, when there were six.
Age 15
The most recent marriage involving a 15-year-old in Wyoming was 2015. It was the first since 2009, when four 15-year-olds were married.
The numbers tapered off significantly starting in about 1984. Before then, between 22 and 36 people married each year at age 15.
In 1984 there were 14 people married at 15. The numbers dropped again in 1987, with eight. They continued to dwindle with occasional jumps: to nine in 1994 and nine in 2006, though they never crested the single digits after 1986.
Age 16
In every year since 1978, including last year, 16-year-olds have gotten married. There were six in 2022.
That’s a mere fraction of the figures of the late 1970s and 1980s, with 215 in 1978; 226 in 1979; 217 in 1980 and 148 in 1981.
The numbers first dropped below 100 in 1985, at 96. They didn’t hit single digits until 2010, when there were six.
Age 17
Likewise, 17-year-olds get married every year in Wyoming.
There were 374 wed in 1978 and 420 in 1980.
But there were only 10 people that age married last year. So far this year, 2023, there have been four 17-year-olds married.
Totals
The totals of minors’ marriages are in the same descent as individual categories, with 627 minors married altogether in 1978 and 16 in 2022. Though the numbers fluctuated in between those two dates, the pattern of descent has been mostly consistent.
An online journal also went after a leading figure in the GOP in the state in a really blistering fashion, accusing that person of serial infidelities and making house outside of marriage, as well as other things. If the author is correct, and I'm going to hold off naming people as I don't know if he is or not, it would be a shocking example of outright hypocrisy, particularly in regard to the GOP's opposition to HB 7 on moral grounds.
Not that this has been unusual in recent years. Donald Trump is hardly a moral paragon, but nonetheless he was embraced by some on the evangelical right.
February 14, 2023, cont
Governor
Gordon to Sign First Bills of 2023 Legislative Session on Wednesday, February
15
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon will
hold a formal bill signing ceremony on Wednesday February 15 at 3 pm in
the Governor's Ceremonial Conference Room in the State Capitol Building. The
ceremony is open to the public.
The Governor will sign the following bills:
Bill No. Enrolled Act #Bill Title
SF 0023 SEA 0003
Treatment courts - transfer to judicial branch.
HB 0028 HEA 0008
Community College Capital Construction
HB 0029 HEA 0007
Community College Funding- Distance Education Credit Hours
-END-
February 15, 2023
The crossover voting bill, designed to address Republican fears that vast hordes of Democrats will cross into the GOP seconds before a primary, and which had died in a Senate Committee, was moved to a more favorable committee in a parliamentary move in hopes of keeping the remaining three Democrats from switching parties in this fashion.
Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who campaigned on stolen election fantasies, is in favor of the bill, as of course he would have to be.
This move, which is a little chickensh** in my view, is being reported as rare, but I can recall it happening in the last general session.
It should be noted that if Democrats crossing over was effective, Cheney would still be our Representative, which she didn't even come close to being.
It should also be noted that all the hardcore really left wing Democrats that made a big deal of their crossing over should have shut up, as they sure didn't do anything any favors by being vocal about their decision.
House Bill 147 has passed, banning improper posting of public lands in an effort to deter hunters.
ENROLLED ACT NO. 18, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SIXTY-SEVENTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING
2023 GENERAL SESSION
AN ACT relating to game and fish; amending the crime of interference with lawful taking of wildlife; prohibiting acts that restrict access to or use of state or federal land as specified; providing an exception; specifying applicability; and providing for effective dates.
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
Section 1. W.S. 23‑3‑405(a) by creating a new paragraph (iii) and (g) by creating a new paragraph (iii) is amended to read:
23‑3‑405. Interference with lawful taking of wildlife prohibited; penalties; damages; injunction.
(a) No person shall with the intent to prevent or hinder the lawful taking of any wildlife:
(iii) Knowingly and without authorization post or maintain in place signs that restrict access to or use of state or federal land on which the lawful taking of or the process of lawfully taking any wildlife is permitted. For purposes of this subsection, "knowingly" means the person has received prior notice from a peace officer that the sign is located on state or federal land.
(g) This section shall:
(iii) Not interfere with any landowner's right to prevent trespass on the landowner's private property.
Section 2. This act is effective July 1, 2023.
This is a good bill, and I'm glad it passed.
This odd bill passed:
ENROLLED ACT NO. 17, HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
SIXTY-SEVENTH LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WYOMING
2023 GENERAL SESSION
AN ACT relating to defense forces and affairs; authorizing veterans to present their driver's licenses or identification cards as proof of their veteran status as specified; and providing for an effective date.
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
Section 1. W.S. 19‑14‑113 is created to read:
19‑14‑113. Veteran designation on driver's license.
(a) Except as provided by subsection (b) of this section, if a person has a veteran designation on their Wyoming driver's license or identification card pursuant to W.S. 31‑7‑141, any local government entity as defined by W.S. 9‑2‑3219(a)(vi) shall allow the person to present their Wyoming driver's license or identification card instead of a military form DD 214 as proof of their status as a veteran.
(b) At the request of the military department or if information other than the person's status as a veteran is required, the military department or other local government entity may ask for further documentation including a military form DD 214.
Section 2. This act is effective July 1, 2023.
I'm not sure why a person would have a veteran designation on their license, but they can. Maybe I'll add one if it'll help prevent me from getting speeding tickets or something.
February 16, 2023
Governor’s
First Bill Signing Advances Mental Health Care in Wyoming and Bolsters
Ability to Fight to Protect Coal Industry
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon
signed the first bills of the 2023 Legislative session during a public signing
ceremony at the Capitol today.
The first bill to be signed by the Governor was Senate File 0023- Treatment courts - transfer to
judicial branch. The "Court
Supervised Treatment Programs Act” transfers responsibility and oversight of
court-supervised treatment programs from the Wyoming Department of Health to
the Wyoming Supreme Court.
Governor Gordon praised the legislation as an
example of a collaborative effort between the Legislative, Judicial and
Executive Branches, and said it offered an opportunity to strengthen the
state’s drug treatment courts. At the signing, Chief Justice of the Wyoming
Supreme Court Kate Fox expressed her support for the legislation, saying the
bill will help improve the way the judicial branch addresses mental health and
substance abuse issues.
The Governor also signed House Bill 0069 Coal-fired facility closures litigation
funding-amendments. That bill provides
additional flexibility for the Governor to utilize an account dedicated to
funding litigation against entities that “impede Wyoming's ability to export
coal, that cause the early retirement of coal-fired electric generation
facilities located in Wyoming, that result in the decreased use of Wyoming coal
or the closure of coal-fired electric generation facilities that use Wyoming
coal.”
“Coal has a future in Wyoming. Thank you to the
Legislature for helping to make a broader use of these funds, so we can be much
more proactive in protecting our coal industries’ future,” Governor Gordon
said.
The Governor signed the following bills today:
Enrolled Act # Bill#Bill Title
HEA0001 HB0112 Theft-penalty for fifth or
subsequent offense.
SEA0013 SF0017 Off-road recreational
vehicles-safety and insurance
SEA0014 SF0015 Military leave for state
employees
SEA0015 SF0014 Wyoming national guard
professional malpractice liability
SEA0016 SF0005 Medical malpractice statutory
update
SEA0017 SF0006 Insurance rebating modernization
SEA0018 SF0024 Financial exploitation of
vulnerable adults
SEA0019 SF0063 Tax administration revisions
SEA0020 SF0059 State parks account-agency
expenditure authority
SEA0021 SF0020 Driver's license and ID card
photo quality
SEA0022 SF0018 Benefits for spouses of law
enforcement members
SEJR1 SJ0007 Support
for Taiwan
-END-
On the coal litigation item, the money that's dedicated to that might as well just be shoveled into the furnaces itself. It's going nowhere, and everybody in the know is aware of that.
February 7, 2023
HB7 banning kiddie marriages passed the Senate, but in amended form, so it's back to the house for reconciliation.
The voting on the bill in the Senate was interesting. It was as follows:
Here you can see the far right was against it, and it only passed the House by ten votes.
Essentially, we can take it from this that the far right opposes this bill for some reason, but why?
In other news, the Cowboy State Daily did a piece on Lester Hunt noting his position on Japanese internees during World War Two.
I'd wondered if this would come up in regard to the resolution to honor him.
February 18, 2023
Senate Bill 152, the sweeping abortion ban bill, might not get assigned to a Senate Committee. In another surprising parliamentary move, the Senate President might simply keep it in his drawer over concerns about the bill's constitutionality and views of constituents.
February 19, 2023
Governor Gordon Takes Action on 8 Bills on Saturday, February 18
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon took action on eight bills on Saturday, February 18. The Governor signed the following bills into law today:
SEA0025SF0041Skill based amusement games-authorized locations.
With this, posting public land to deter hunters is now illegal.
February 20, 2023
The Tribune, in its editorial from yesterday, accused the legislature of hypocrisy. Among the bills causing that charge was the efforts to kill the underage marriage bill.
February 21, 2023
Governor Gordon to Hold Public Bill Signing Today, Tuesday, February 21
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon will hold a formal bill signing ceremony today, Tuesday February 21 beginning at 2 pm in the Governor's Ceremonial Conference Room in the State Capitol Building. The ceremony is open to the public.
The Governor will sign the following bills:
Enrolled Act # Bill# Bill Title
SEA0027 SF0011 Cancer early detection amendments
HEA0020 HB0018 Missing person alert systems
HEA0022 HB0061 Source material associated with mining-agreement
HEA0026 HB0175 Excused absence-state fair events
HEA0028 HB0057 Armed forces-amendments.
HEA0031 HB0239 Vehicle idling-decriminalization.
HEA0032 HB0142 Notice of annexation.
February 22, 2023
The legislature grew testy yesterday as the sponsor of a bill on pharmaceutical regulation complained about edits being made without notice.
This is the second time in a week when there's been an open spat regarding committee edits to bills being made and a legislator feeling that something about the process was improper.
Governor
Gordon Signs Bill to Help Advance Rare Earth Elements Mining in Wyoming
Also
signs bill to advance Missing and Murdered Indigenous People response and
vetoes first bill of the session
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon
signed a bill to advance Wyoming’s leadership on developing rare earth and
critical minerals today. He also took action on 25 other bills on Tuesday,
February 21.
At a ceremony in the Capitol the Governor signed
into law a bill giving Wyoming primacy to permit and regulate parts of
the rare earth and critical minerals industry. House Bill 0061
amends the existing Agreement State Status with the Nuclear Regulatory
Commission to allow Wyoming the permitting and regulatory authority for rare
earth elements source materials. The Legislature passed this bill with
unanimous support and today, the Governor signed both HB 0061 and sent a letter to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
The Governor also signed House Bill 0018 -
Missing person alert systems. Sponsored by the Select Committee on Tribal
Relations, the bill aids in the administrative establishment of a new Ashanti
Alert. The alert will function similarly to an Amber alert, sending out rapid
notifications to cell phones and other media regarding missing adults. Local
law enforcement can request these alerts, which will be initiated statewide by
the Wyoming Highway Patrol upon meeting specific alert criteria. The
legislation came from the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Task Force the
Governor established.
Governor Gordon exercised his veto authority on House Bill 0106
- Eminent domain-wind energy collector systems. The Governor said that the
bill’s nine-year moratorium on the use of eminent domain is likely to stall
development in Wyoming. Previously the moratorium had only been in place for
two years at a time. He also expressed concern that the bill would interfere
with the rights of private landowners to exercise their private property and
contractual rights, as well as their right to contract with whomever they
choose. He noted that many ranchers and farmers in Wyoming have successfully negotiated
with wind developers and are enhancing the ability of their lands to provide
income for their families. While recognizing eminent domain is a delicate
issue, the Governor asked the Legislature to examine the use of eminent domain
authority, and then revisit the need for a moratorium in a future session and
consider a shorter moratorium if it is necessary.
The Governor signed the following bills into law
today:
Enrolled Act #
Bill #
Bill Title
HEA0020 HB0018 Missing person alert systems
HEA0021 HB0020 Land exchanges-notice
HEA0022 HB0061 Source material associated with
mining-agreement
HEA0023 HB0181 Online sports wagering-amendments
HEA0024 HB0013 Office of guardian ad
litem-program references
HEA0025 HB0079 Voter I.D. requirements
HEA0026 HB0175 Excused absence-state fair events
HEA0027 HB0086 Disclosure of private
cryptographic keys.
HEA0028 HB0057 Armed forces-amendments.
HEA0029 HB0015 County authority to dissolve
museum boards-clarification.
HEA0030 HB0005 Voter registry list-voter ID and
absentee ballots.
SEA0035 SF0040 Federal political action
committees-reports
SEA0036 SF007 Definition of opiate
antagonist-amendment.
The Governor vetoed the following bill. His veto
letter is attached and linked below.
HEA0033 HB0106Eminent domain-wind energy collector systems.
The full list of bills the Governor has taken
action on during the 2023 Legislative Session can be found on the Governor's website.
-END-
The bill that got vetoed pertained to eminent domain and wind turbines. The Governor's letter stated:
February 22, cont.
Interesting news on parliamentary procedure was in evidence today.
SF 117 was subject to an attempt by Jeanette Ward to go around the Speaker of the House, who has simply kept the bill on "parental rights on education" on his desk for over 20 days. Ward tried to move to assign it to a committee, and the Speaker torpedoed the move.
It'll likely never move off the desk, amounting to another defeat for the populist right.
SF 144, Chloe's Law, also failed in committee, which is frankly very surprising. It's not dead, but the chances of it advancing seem quite limited now. A similar bill by Charles Scott remains active.
February 23, 2024
The Life Is A Human Right bill, HB 152, which was lingering unassigned in the Senate, has now been assigned to the Agricultural Committee where it will likely pass. There is apparently speculation it would not pass the Health Committee.
The bill designed to allow the state to negotiate with the Tribes on hunting rights, HB 83, failed. It largely failed as the Tribes came out against it.
February 23, cont.
Governor Gordon to Hold Public Bill Signing Today, Thursday, February 23
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon will hold a formal bill signing ceremony today, Thursday, February 23 beginning at 2 pm in the Governor's Ceremonial Conference Room in the State Capitol Building. The ceremony is open to the public.
The Governor will sign the following bills:
Enrolled Act # Bill# Bill Title
HEA0036 HB0065 988 suicide prevention.
SEA0039 SF0010 Licensed professional counselor compact.
SEA0038 SF0043 EMS districts.
HEA0044 HB0007 Underage marriage-amendments.
HEA0041 HB0127 Health care facilities and clergy.
HEA0050 HB0056 Purple star schools
HEA0048 HB0134 Alcohol sales to licensees
HEA0042 HB0044 Road and bridge construction-alternative contracting.
HEA0046 HB0279 Voter identification requirements
February 24, 2023
And the following were in fact signed into law yesterday.
Governor Gordon Takes Action on 8 Bills on Saturday, February 18
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon took action on nine bills on Thursday, February 23. The Governor signed the following bills into law today:
Enrolled Act #Bill #Bill Title
HEA0036 HB0065 988 suicide prevention.
HEA0041 HB0127 Health care facilities and clergy.
HEA0042 HB0044 Road and bridge construction-alternative contracting.
HEA0044 HB0007 Underage marriage-amendments.
HEA0046 HB0279 Voter identification requirements
HEA0048 HB0134 Alcohol sales to licensees
HEA0050 HB0056 Purple star schools
SEA0038 SF0043 EMS districts.
SEA0039 SF0010 Licensed professional counselor compact.
The full list of bills the Governor has taken action on during the 2023 Legislative Session can be found on the Governor's website.
Therefore, take note would be Romeo's and Juliet's, you have to wait until you are 16 to seek to marry.
An amended Life Is A Human Right Act passed out of Senate Committee, but stripped of the provisions that tied it to a Wyoming Supreme Court decision, and adding rape and incest exceptions.
Anthony Bouchard has called on the Wyoming GOP to censure the Speaker of the House for putting Chloe's Law in his bottom drawer. If the bill doesn't make it out by Monday, it will fall due to a legislative deadline for bills passing one chamber to make it out of committee in the next.
Part of the problem here is that the bill was amended significantly in the House and then came back with a "do not pass" from committee, which means that its chances are poor otherwise. Bills that suffer that fate are automatically put in the bottom drawer, although the speaker feels that it is likely to come out before the deadline.
The Speaker indicates he flat out won't let SF117, the Parental Rights In Education Act, out on the floor, in part because he feels it intrudes on local control by school boards.
Sommers has also put Senate File 86, allowing Wyomingites to use their concealed carry permits as voter identification in the drawer, but due to House Bill 79 which was a mirror already being passed into law. He put Senate File 143 also is stuck in Sommers’ drawer, establishing a scholarship fund to send some Wyoming students to private schools instead of public, as a nearly identical bill has already failed.
February 25, 2023
HB 103, the Cross Over Voting bill designed to prevent an imaginary problem of imaginary Democrats crossing over to spoil primary elections, has passed the Legislature. It's unknown if the Governor will sign it.
HB 104, allowing use of infrared scopes to hunt predators at night was signed into law. I frankly don't think this was a good idea.
The bill also cleared up some questions about predator hunteres being able to hunt on state lands.
Governor Gordon
Signs Supplemental Budget with Historic Savings to Keep Taxes Low For Future
Generations
**Corrected
with updated budget letter**
CHEYENNE, Wyo. – Governor Mark Gordon
signed a supplemental budget that places more than $1 billion in savings,
allowing the state to keep taxes low and generate higher investment returns
that will benefit future generations. Today, the Governor also took action on
16 other bills.
“I congratulate the Legislature for its work on
my budget recommendations,” Governor Gordon said. “It is gratifying that the
budget submitted to me is closely aligned with my original recommendations.
Where we disagreed, or where they overstepped the separation of powers embedded
in our Constitution, I exercised my veto authority. The fiscal condition of the
State remains strong.”
The Governor thanked the Legislature for
delivering a budget that reflects the approach he outlined in his supplemental
budget proposal – one that sets aside funds for leaner times ahead and
addresses the inflationary pressures facing Wyoming citizens and the concerns
of the state’s most vulnerable and those living on fixed incomes. Most notably,
this budget provides for more property tax relief for citizens.
Governor Gordon noted that for every dollar of
state revenue spent in the supplemental budget, it saves roughly $3.50. In
addition to savings, the Supplemental Budget makes strategic investments in
Wyoming. These include additional funding for the Property Tax Refund Program,
support for the state’s energy industries and a market adjustment for state
employees and teachers to offset the impacts of inflation.
The Governor used his authority to issue several
line-item vetoes, including items that are overly prescriptive and those that
present separation of powers concerns. The Governor’s budget letter explaining
his line-item vetoes is attached and may be found here.
Governor Gordon also exercised his veto
authority on Senate File 0071-
State loan and bond programs. In his letter, the Governor pointed out that the
bill reduces the amount of funding available to the State Loan and Investment
Board for farm loans, shrinking the safety net available to the agriculture
industry. The Governor also expressed concern that the changes the legislation
makes to the interest rates for farm loans put the State in competition with
private financial institutions.
The Governor signed the following bills into
law:
Enrolled ActBill #Bill Title
HEA0035 HB0021 State lands-use of land
qualification requirements.
HEA0038 HB0031 BOCES as local education
agencies.
HEA0039 HB0174 Homestead exemption-amendments.
HEA0040 HB0027 School facilities-consolidated
remediation schedule.
HEA0043 HB0165 Living organ donor protection.
HEA0045 HB0096 Transfer on death deed-insurance
coverage.
A B-17 crashed between Glenrock and Douglas on this day in 1943. More specifically, B-17F 42-5102 crashed, with the loss of the entire crew of ten, 28 miles east of Casper.
A marker is planned for this site.
Air disasters during training happened at what would now be regarded as a horrific rate.
The Afrika Korps, overextended, began to withdraw back through the Kasserine Pass. Rommel's decision to commence withdrawing was objected to by his senior officers at first.
Rommel addressing German troops riding in a captured American M3 halftrack. By Bundesarchiv, Bild 146-1990-071-31 / CC-BY-SA 3.0, CC BY-SA 3.0 de, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=5419522
His decision was correct, but telling. The attack had been largely successful up to the day prior, but now with a change of command and facing growing Allied firepower and superior logistics, the advance was effectively ended and now the battle's gain were about to turn into losses. This could be said of the entire North African effort, and for that matter, the entire German war effort at this point.
Steel pennies were first stamped, and then put in circulation on February 27. The act was to save copper and was not popular.
Ukrainian born Lt. Gen. Grigory Kravchenko, age 30, fighter ace and twice Hero of the Soviet Union, was shot down and subsequently died from his injuries when his parachute failed to open. He'd grown up in Kazakhstan after being born in Ukraine.
Soviet Major General M.M. Shaimuratov, died following his brutal torture by Cossacks serving under German command. He was a Tartar cavalryman who had first joined the Red Army in 1919.
A terrible fire at the St. Joseph's Orphanage in County Cavan, Ireland, resulted in the death of 35 girls and one adult. The fire which occurred in the very early morning hours was not detected until it was advanced.
The girls who perished ranged from 7 to 15 years of age.
Basically- Save the tomboys, let little boys paint their nails, don’t be a jerk to your kid because there are bad people/groomers in the world- protect your child and teach them they’re great the way they are and doing those things doesn’t mean they’re a different gender
In that, I also noticed the operation of synchronicity. And here I find it at work again.
Among the various bills pending in front of the state's legislature are two regarding the horrific abuse of minors in the name of "gender affirming care". Chemical and surgical attacks on gender and surgery to "reassign", or at least partially remove, a person's gender characteristics is "care" in the same way that the Holocaust was a "solution". It isn't, it demonstrates extreme moral depravity, and it's an absolutely insane rejection of nature.
Some of this topic, and that one, started off with various items I'd read or heard, which was then followed, by what I just noted here:
Well, I was in the bookstore for three days running, but that's another story.
And just before the trip to the bookstore, I became aware that somebody who I've known their entire life now identifies as transgendered, but there's something else, I suspect, going on there that I'll not deal with here.
I noted in that I'd post another one on this particular topic.
And then the very brave Luka "Bunny" Hein testified in front of the legislature, saying a lot of this stuff more bravely than I could have.
I so thoroughly killed off my younger self to become what I was, what I am, that I truly feel as though trying to find any part of her left in me would just feel like resurrecting someone else’s corpse
I suppose that metaphor is appropriate with how Frankenstein-like I feel now
Luka Hein.
Hein isn't alone. She's joined by Chloe Cole, whose name has been given to one of the proposed statutes, "Chloe's Law". Cole, like Hein, is an activist against this horror, but she's gone further and is crusading generally against what we might call the perversion of youth. If you want to know why there's so much furor over a certain book that keeps getting mentioned in regard to school libraries, look at her Twitter feed. She put the pages of the book up, complete with the male on male dick sucking images, which are the reason people are complaining about the book.1
I've known little boys who played with dolls who grew up to be men's men, and I've known plenty of girls who took up what had been formerly regarded as very male activities, or male habits. Indeed, ironically in our day and age, younger women who have retained highly traditional ideas, or perhaps I should say highly feminine behavior, have been ridiculed and belittled, while women as a whole have been pushed into entire roles that are not only traditionally male, but in some (limited) instances, such as combat soldiers are likely genetically so. Up until just recently, however, it wasn't the case that the conclusion was made on some societal level that this must mean those boys want to be girls, or those girls want to be boys.
Now that's being shoved down upon them.2
What's really going on here?
We discussed some of that just the other day, but there are a number of things going on, the first of which is the complete rejection by the WASP class of the concept of nature and standards, which we touched on in our earlier essay. That's left them a ship adrift, and subject to the winds of forces which very much have an agenda.
As we've already gone into it in some depth, we won't here. But basically to sum it up, up until after the Second World War the dominant American culture, the WASP culture, was rooted in a Protestant sense of Christianity, which means that it was rooted in a Christian world view. Even people who were not Protestant Christians picked up large portions of this world view, given us the oddity of Protestantized Catholics and Protestantized Jew, as well as Protestantized Agnostics and even Protestantized Atheists. Humorist Garrison Keiller has a joke in one of his monologues about claimed non believing bachelor farmers going to Lutheran Easter services and noting that "it was a Lutheran God they didn't believe in", but there's something to that.
As part of that, or related to it, American society, and European society wasn't all that far removed from nature in a way up into the early 1960s. You certainly can find examples of people who lived an urban life for generations by the 60s, but more often than not you'd tend to find some recent rural connection. People's parents, or grandparents, had been farmers quite often. And certainly in North America, as Gene Shepherd noted in one of his essays, even urban people retained outdoor activities to some degree if they had no farm connection.3
Why does this matter? Well, for a couple of reasons. Starting in the 60s, this really started to breakdown. The Spirit of 1968 essentially rejected all conventions, existential or otherwise, and started society on a path of radical self defined, "if you feel good, do it" type of thinking, inroads into which were already being advanced by the Playboy culture that started attacking the family, in essence, in 1953. Things were well advanced in this direction by the time Tom Wolfe redefined the Boomers as "The Me Generation" in 1976, by which time the Greed Is Good ethos was also taking root. By the late 1970s the WASP culture was so diluted it was already about individual self definition, as long as that also included monetary success. Ties to the land were being lost, in spite of efforts to revive it in an unrealistic idealized sense, so lessons that are plain in nature, were gone.4
With the guardrails removed, it's no wonder where things ended up, but it didn't happen, of course, overnight. Indeed, it really took until the Boomers children raised in the larger WASP culture started having their own, and passed on only a very diluted sense of anything whatsoever, with that mostly being "be yourself" and "be successful". Nobody was a loser, everyone (up until you needed to make money) a winner, and whatever you wanted to do was okay.
Well, nature is nature, sometimes cruel, and that's not the way things work.
And hence we see the fork of a dilemma here, which is impacting the modern age, and the rise of transgenderism in confused, mostly female, adolescents, and confused males in their early 20s.
And that means the root is likely not the same.
The Confused Girls
Luka Hein describes this, having lived through it, about well as anyone can. By and large, what we see with these girls, and that's what they are, is this. They're mostly distressed female teenagers with ADHD, some of whom are Tomboys, who are pushed in this direction or find temporary refuge in the identifier. Totally lacking a community, with parents who are about as firm as milk toast and who have no existential concept of anything, they head that way and then are pushed that way.5
In a society grounded in nature, let alone the existential, they'd get real support from their families, which would like be sports, the outdoors, and a community with external standards. Instead, they get "support" which amounts to pushing them into mutilation.
The big root in this is the lack of a community, combined with an exposure to the perverse early on. Girls this age don't want to be pushed into sex, let alone pushed into sex, which up until very recently was regarded as extremely weird. Now they are. They're pushing back and away. Getting away is the real desire. Given enough time, and support, to realize that they don't have to yield to whatever weird conduct Reddit is boosting at the moment, or appearing on the cover of "teen" magazines, and they'd be okay. Moreover, being somebody like Hein, whose Twitter photo is a baby rabbit sitting on a large caliber handgun, doesn't mean you have interest which mean you have to be a closet male.
Polish mountain climber Wanda Rutkiewicz, Tomboy extraordinaire, difficult personality, married woman, and a real woman. Polish Olympian Maria Magdalena Andrejczyk provides another, very contemporary, example.
The Confused Young Men
Some of what we noted above applies to men as well, but I suspect that we have more often is a cry for attention, or the Laying Flat culture, or both, at work.
While it's not popular in any fashion to say it (although it is being said), it's always been hard to be a man. This is not to say that it's been easy to be a woman, but frankly the burdens of life have traditionally fallen on men and women quite differently. The historical burden on women is indeed tied to their biology, bearing children is dangerous, or at least was up into the 20th Century, and hard on the body. And up until the Government stepped in to be the husband of women who cared not to marry the father's of their children, having even one child tied a man to the father if she kept the child permanently as there was no other economic option for the most part. People have tended to therefore look back and be wistful on the "patrimony".
Truth be known, however, male roles in societies have been blisteringly simple traditionally, if not always easy. Men were expected to take a societally defense role, with their first obligations being to protect their families first, protect women and children in general secondly, and protect their nation last. On that last one, you can put in tribe if you are thinking of a more aboriginal society.
Men were also expected to "provide" for their families. When I was young, it was still the case that people would excuse some other real or imagined failure of a man by stating "he's a good provider". This had all sorts of meanings in context. In one hand, a man might have some real moral failings, perhaps he hit the bars a lot, or perhaps he dallied with other women, but if he made a good income and brought it principally home to his family, that was regarded as excusing a lot of other conduct.
Conversely, it was also used in the instances in which a man might otherwise be regarded as boring, plain looking, or not an otherwise romantically attractive person. "He's a good provider" would be regarded as excusing those failings on one hand, or be used as a basis for suggesting to an unmarried woman why somebody should be regarded as a prospect for marriage.6
This goes back to the dawn of the species and reflects the original genetic dimorphism, physically and psychologically, that our species exhibits. In modern industrial times it reflected itself in a number of interesting ways that directly made, if you will, men's life "hard".
Men working themselves to death wasn't really regarded as abnormal and in certain societies with thin resources, such as Finland, men died much earlier than women did. Men in general still generally die younger than women for that matter. And dangerous work was a male role, including not only industrial work, but the most dangerous work of all, war. Indeed, in spite of feminism and a general societal effort to suppress this, this is still largely true.
Much less true, however, is how society reflected this.
Men were expected to respect women in a much more formal manner than they do now, where this is very much no longer the case. They were expected to defend them, even in a situation in which they really didn't know them. They were expected at some point to plan to make a living which "would support a family", or if they didn't feel up to that, and not all did by any means, to drop out of the family raising role for some other societally acceptable one. They were expected to support families if they had one, including marrying a woman if they got her pregnant and were not married. And they were expected to bare arms if need be.
A good example of this in the early 20th Century is interestingly the Titanic. A monument in Washington D.C. introduces to us the reason why on its front and back inscriptions:
TO THE BRAVE MEN WHO PERISHED IN THE TITANIC
APRIL 15 1912
THEY GAVE THEIR
LIVES THAT WOMEN
AND CHILDREN
MIGHT BE SAVED
ERECTED BY THE
WOMEN OF AMERICA
Back:
TO THE YOUNG AND THE OLD
THE RICH AND THE POOR
THE IGNORANT AND THE LEARNED
ALL
WHO GAVE THEIR LIVES NOBLY
TO SAVE WOMEN AND CHILDREN
The men on the Titanic, rich and poor, stepped aside so that women and children would live. This was the traditional expectation, and they fully fulfilled it, stupid modern movies notwithstanding.
The reward, so to speak, for the role was in part simply genetic. Husky's, the dog, are happy pulling sleds, which coyotes would not be. Much of this just worked the same way. Additionally, however, male life tended to result in male societies, formally and informally, going all the way back to tribal society. Membership in them was part of being male, and amazingly universal.7Indeed, it started off in childhood, with the first "band of brothers" usually being a "band of boys", and later some formal organization, like the Cub Scouts.
Now all of this is shattered. A society that confused equality of the sexes, which existed much more than imagined prior to feminism, but which has been confused by the failure to understand how technology impacted that, with samism, has created a societal requirement that, save for professional sports, the physical differences between women and men are not to be mentioned. Men have become shy about defending women the way they once did, least they receive a rebuke. Well-intentioned government subsidies combined with the society wide adoption of the "Playboy Ethic" has blinded society to the physical and psychological impacts of sex so that not only are men not really expected to take care of any children they cause, or the women who bare them, but they're actually expected to put out irrespective of the consequences. This is so much the case that in a fairly recent notorious event in which somebody was unjustly killed, the press was full of his being a "good father", which in real terms simply meant that he'd fathered a lot of children, and not all by the same woman. Not that he was acting as a parent.
Added to that, the traditional role of "defense" has seen female intrusion as something that must be accepted, although in reality it hasn't gone that far at the armati homines level.
Male societies now are completely verboten. You can't do that. The Boy Scouts must admit girls, and is the Scouts. Men, basically, have no larger societal refuge from their male lives.
And the point of those lives is now warped. The "get a good job" pressure is still there, but point is missing. Getting a good job is supposed to occur, so you can buy toys. In the WASP end of things, many of the upper middle class WASPs avoid children entirely. Ultimately procreation, a reality of earlier years, is just regarded as recreation, and therefore the object of it on the giving and receiving end easily disposed of.
If young teenage women, on the cusp of becoming young women, have been freighted by the Reddit/Internet portrayal of their expectation that they serve as harem concubines for men in general, and have opted out through transgenderism, young men, a little past their early teen years, and perhaps fully past them but still in their very young 20s, have looked at this in some instances and looked for the door out.
In the past, as noted, there was an outdoor, even before much of this became so perverse. In rural societies, bachelor farmers, who often weren't terribly good farmers, were a pretty common and accepted thing. Farming, and ranching, was good honorable work, and not getting married as part of that was more common than a person might suppose.
The unmarried industrial worker was also surprisingly common. A sort of portrayal of this, combined with one man's desire to get married, is shown in the movie Marty. Enlisted men in the Army, with the exception of senior NCO's, sometimes, tended to be unmarried. Indeed, junior officers were usually unmarried, and in some militaries, such as the British Army and, while a bad example, the Imperial Russian Army, marriage was highly frowned upon. Moreover, certain male occupations tended to fall towards unmarried men by default, and some, such as the Catholic priesthood, required it. Just as male society tended to accept the mentally off a bit into it's ranks in the larger group, it accepted unmarried men into it as well.9
With the rise of the societal acceptance of homosexuality as ostensibly normal, this dynamic completely changed. While there have always been people with same sex attraction, unmarried men were not assumed to be "gay", they were assumed to be unmarried. Homosexual men did fall into the categories mentioned, as the wealth in society started to rise mid 20th Century and certain low paying occupations became increasingly societally unacceptable to obviously intelligent men, this increased. But the postwar economic boom, the Playboy culture onset, the Sexual Revolution, and Feminism completely destroyed what had been.
At some point, by the late 1980s, society would no longer let men who wanted to basically drop out of things, for whatever reason, do it. A couple of decades prior society accepted that a guy could take an industrial job, for instance, and work it his entire life as a single man, with a single dwelling, and not be homosexual. By the late 80s, no longer. And no longer was such a person really even allowed to peaceably dwell in that condition, but an absolute need for sex of some sort was presumed. Such people were presumed to be homosexual and if they were younger, relationships they might not really want were forced on them. The Friends and Big Bang Culture had arrived.
At the same time, the rise of the Me Generation meant that money for individual hedonistic purposes was now the point of being. You needed a "career" so you could live well, even if living well really meant that everything was for entertainment, including other people.
How do you get out of that?
Well, "transitioning" will work.
Based at least on some observation, young men just getting ignored in their plight, with parents who aren't going to provide any guide rails, is a big factor in this. They aren't really seeking to change genders, they're trying, ironically enough, to get back to the 1950s.
How does this end?
I'm usually pretty cautions about quoting Rod Dreher. I like some of his stuff, and not so much others. Be that as it may, he's spot on here:
There will be no justice until every damn doctor, hospital, and medical association responsible for this atrocity has been sued into the ground, and some of them imprisoned. Forgiveness? Yes, in time (though that's easy for me to say, as I have not suffered what this father has suffered) -- but only after full lustration, only after Nuremberg-like tribunals, only after the trials, only after utter and complete shame shattering all the luminaries and the institutions -- including the Democratic Party, the TV networks, the major newspapers -- which brought this evil onto the lives of American children and their families.
Those who did this to young women like her -- people like Dr. Gallagher above, who revels on social media in her success in slicing the healthy breasts off of women -- God willing, they will pay within the limits of the law for what they have done. As evil as the Tuskegee Experiment was, this is even more damaging, because it has created, and is creating daily, thousands of more victims.
He's exactly right.
Indeed, it's already happening. Chloe Cole has filed suit. My prediction is that if she doesn't win, somebody soon after her will. And like the Opioid lawsuits that are now so common, they'll drive this out of the societal field by litigation force and judgements. In the meantime, the same society that was just lately pushing pills will be "oh my, oh my, how could this terrible of thing have happened.
But that won't solve the larger problem.
Their end is destruction. Their God is their stomach; their glory is in their “shame.” Their minds are occupied with earthly things.
Philippians; 3:19.
This pretty much defines where we are, even though's worshiping their stomachs and glorifying in their shame don't recognize it. That has to change, and changing that is a tall order.
Because in order to do that, the lens, in society has to be turned back to me, towards the whole, and the existential.
Footnotes:
1. I really haven't tracked the library debate much and have discounted it, but Cole's posting makes it plain how far things are gone. The book clearly illustrates the author's descent into homosexual conduct and is frankly pornographic. It shouldn't be in a school library, and it does amount, intentionally or not, to transgender propaganda.
At no point prior to our current era would there even been a debate on whether a book which graphically depicts sexual acts, let alone homosexual acts, should be available to be checked out of a public school library. The fact that there is such debate now is a sign of how far gone things really are, and additionally how entrenched certain interests are that not only want to defend their contra natural lifestyle, but actually promote it.
2. To state this bluntly, what people feared about the Obergefel decision has not only come to pass, but it's surpassed those fears.
This should not have surprised anyone. Many years ago the homosexual book After the Ball, according to those who have read it, and I have not, not only argued for the normalization of homosexuality, but apparently for the dismantling of marriage and the traditional and long-established incidents of male/female relationships. Presently, not only are those campaigning for the normalization of transgenderism, but campaigning for it, which is accompanied by foisting medial "treatments" upon the very young, and the accompanying large-scale transfers of cash that entails.
This has happened before with other industries. Think, for example, this:
3. Shepherd noted in one of his books how the men in the Indiana city in which he grew up all subscribed to Field & Stream, even though they largely were not outdoorsmen. It was a retained desire.
4. One of the odder examples of this, very widespread, is the change in our relationship with animals.
Our species is one of those which has a symbiotic relationship with other ones. We like to think that this is unique to us, but it isn't. Many other examples of exist of birds, mammals and even fish that live in very close relationships with other species. When this occurred with us, we do not know, but we do know that its ancient. Dogs and modern wolves both evolved from a preexisting wolf species starting some 25,000 to 40,000 years ago, according to the best evidence we currently have. That likely means it was longer ago than that.
Cats, in contrast, self domesticated some 7,000 or so years ago, according to our best estimates.
Cat eating a shellfish, depiction from an Egyptian tomb.
We have a proclivity for both domesticating animals, and accepting self domestication of animals, the truth being that such events are likely part and parcel of each other. Dogs descend from some opportunistic wolves that started hanging around us as we killed things they liked to eat. Cats from wildcats that came on as we're dirty. Both evolved thereafter in ways we like, becoming companions as well as servants. But not just them, horses, pigs, sheep, cattle. . .the list is long.
As we've moved from the natural to the unnatural, we've forgotten that all domestic animals, no matter how cute and cuddly they are, are animals and were originally our servants. And as real children have become less common in WASP culture, the natural instinct to have an infant to take care of, or even adore, has transferred itself upon these unwilling subjects, making them "fur babies".
It's interesting in this context to watch the difference between people who really work with animals, and those who do not. Just recently, for example, our four-year-old nephew stayed the night due to the snow, and was baffled why our hunting dog, who is a type of working dog but very much a companion, stayed the night indoors. The ranch dogs do not. . . ever. The ranch cats, friendly though they are, don't either.
5. Both Hein and Cole have been reluctant to criticize their parents, but that doesn't mean that they shouldn't be criticized. These strong daughters honor their parents by providing the backbone that their parents completely lacked.
Having said that, this illustrates the point I noted above. These young women are roughly in their early 20s, which means they were born either in this century, or the tail end of the last one. This means that their parents were likely born in the 70s or 80s, to parents who had come up in during the 60s. So in effect they are the grandchildren of Boomers whose children were often raised with the ethos of the 60s and 70s, which combined would be there are no standards and your goal is to make money. Additionally, their parents came up during the GOP's gutting of science funding in schools. So they were born to parents whose grasp of the physical and metaphysical is weak, and whose principal world view is that it's nice to be nice to the nice.
6. While citing to fiction is always dangerous, an interesting example of this are well depicted in the fiction of Jane Austen. Not really intended for wide circulation, and limited to the concerns of her class, they nonetheless demonstrate the basic nature of male and female relationships across the ages, which is why they remain incredibly popular, particularly amongst young women who tend to see themselves in the characters.
A feature of this is the "provider" aspect. Tending to focus on families made up of women, the unmarried women are the concerns of their parents and concerned themselves. Finding a suitable match, to so speak, dominates the novels, with tension between that and romantic love. An example in Pride and Prejudice, her best novel, is found in the character of Charlotte Lucas, the protagonist close friend, who opts to marry the Episcopal Churchman, William Collins, who is the epitome of boorish and overbearing, as she's 27 and has no other prospects, and his position is secure.
7. An example of this given that at some point, it must have been in the 1950s and perhaps early 60s, my father was a member of the Knights of Columbus.
Now, my father was not a joiner by any means, but in the 50s and 60s a man would almost by default be a member of some organizations. He was the President one year of his profession's statewide professional association, which means that he had been active in it. And based on some recollections he related to me over the years, he'd been a member of the Knights when the Knights still had a downtown clubhouse. So had two of my uncles, at least. Maybe, and probably, all four of them were.
The Knights were a much different organization then, at least locally, than now. Now I know that they act as a mutual benefit society, as I am sure they did then, and I note them most frequently for having pancake breakfasts at one of the parish churches every Sunday after the early morning Mass. They may have done that then as well, but the big difference is that their clubhouse, like most men's clubs of the day, had a bar, and it could get a little rowdy. The long serving Parish Priest of the era stopped in every night at closing time to make sure that they were actually closing, and their St. Patrick's Day parties were legendary.
Be that as it may, it's almost impossible to imagine my father in that setting. Probably after he married, or at least after I was born, he chose not to be, which was in keeping with his character. Still, it's interesting that you pretty much had to be a member of some social club, probably male only, if you were a man prior to the 1970s.
I've never been a member of anything like that, really, although when I was first practicing law the county bar association was amazingly active and often met one evening, right after work, in a bar, ostensibly to present a CLE. My enduring memory of one of those meetings was getting there in time, but just in time, and having to squeeze into the back row of table seating, only to have one notoriously rude female lawyer saying something like "so you think you can get around my fat ass?"
She later was subject to a scandal when her husband turned her over to the authorities for molesting him when he was a minor.
9. This is reflected back to us by the culture of earlier eras in some odd ways.
For instance, in cartoons, an unmarried male character was really common. Gasoline Alley's central protagonist was, at first, unmarried, with this changing as female readership was low.
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