Going Feral: Wyoming Officials Fear Seminoe Power Project Could Ruin Premier Bighorn Herd

Going Feral: Wyoming Officials Fear Seminoe Power Project Could...:  That's enough on this project.  Bad idea. Wyoming Officials Fear Seminoe Power Project Could Ruin Premier Bighorn Herd

Wyoming Officials Fear Seminoe Power Project Could Ruin Premier Bighorn Herd

 That's enough on this project.  Bad idea.

Wyoming Officials Fear Seminoe Power Project Could Ruin Premier Bighorn Herd

The Agrarian's Lament: Now, more than ever, it's time for an Agrarian/Distributist remake of this country.

The Agrarian's Lament: Now, more than ever, it's time for an Agrarian/Dis...: 

Now, more than ever, it's time for an Agrarian/Distributist remake of this country.

I was going to use the work "revolution", but didn't as I don't want it suggested that I mean an armed revolution.  I'm not.  Indeed, I'm not keen on violence in general, and as I intend to refer to the American Revolution in this essay, I'll note that had I lived in the 1770s, I'd have been genuinely horrified by events.  I highly doubt that I would have joined the "Patriots" and likewise I wouldn't have joined the Loyalist either.  I'd have been in the 1/3d that sat the war out with out choosing sides, but distressed by the overall nature of it.

The other day I posted this:

The Agrarian's Lament: Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 10...: Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 108th Edition. “The... :  CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 108th Edition. “The brave men and w...

In that item, I noted this:

Interestingly, just yesterday I heard a Catholic Answers interview of Dr. Andrew Willard Jones on his book The Church Against the State.  The interview had a fascinating discussion on sovereignty and subsidiarity, and included a discussion on systems of organizing society, including oligarchy.

Oligarchy is now where we are at.

I've been thinking about it, and Dr. Jones has really hit on something.  The nature of Americanism, if you will, is in fact not its documentary artifacts and (damaged) institutions, it is, rather, in what it was.  At the time of the American Revolution the country had an agrarian/distributist culture and that explained, and explains, everything about it.

The Revolution itself was fought against a society that had concentrated oligarchical wealth.  To more than a little degree, colonist to British North America had emigrated to escape that.

We've been losing that for some time.  Well over a century, in fact, and indeed dating back into the 19th Century.  It started accelerating in the mid 20th Century and now, even though most do not realize it, we are a full blown oligarchy.

Speaking generally, we may say that whatever legal enactments are held to be for the interest of various constitutions, all these preserve them. And the great preserving principle is the one which has been repeatedly mentioned- to have a care that the loyal citizen should be stronger than the disloyal. Neither should we forget the mean, which at the present day is lost sight of in perverted forms of government; for many practices which appear to be democratical are the ruin of democracies, and many which appear to be oligarchical are the ruin of oligarchies. Those who think that all virtue is to be found in their own party principles push matters to extremes; they do not consider that disproportion destroys a state. A nose which varies from the ideal of straightness to a hook or snub may still be of good shape and agreeable to the eye; but if the excess be very great, all symmetry is lost, and the nose at last ceases to be a nose at all on account of some excess in one direction or defect in the other; and this is true of every other part of the human body. The same law of proportion equally holds in states. Oligarchy or democracy, although a departure from the most perfect form, may yet be a good enough government, but if any one attempts to push the principles of either to an extreme, he will begin by spoiling the government and end by having none at all. Wherefore the legislator and the statesman ought to know what democratical measures save and what destroy a democracy, and what oligarchical measures save or destroy an oligarchy. For neither the one nor the other can exist or continue to exist unless both rich and poor are included in it. If equality of property is introduced, the state must of necessity take another form; for when by laws carried to excess one or other element in the state is ruined, the constitution is ruined.

Aristotle, Politics.

Corporations were largely illegal in early American history.  They existed, but were highly restricted.  The opposite is the case now, with corporations' "personhood" being so protected by the law that the United States Supreme Court has ruled that corporate political spending is a form of free speech and corporations can spend unlimited money on independent political broadcasts in candidate elections.  This has created a situation in which corporations have gobbled up local retail in the US and converted middle class shopkeeping families into serfs.  It's also made individual heads of corporations obscenely, and I used that word decidedly, wealthy.

Wealth on the level demonstrated by Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Donald Trump simply should not exist.  It's bad for average people and its corrupting of their souls. That corruption can be seen in their unhinged desire for self aggrandizement and acquisition.  Elon Must acquires young white women of a certain type for concubinage  Donald Trump, whose money is rooted in the occupation of land, has collected bedmates over the years, "marrying" some of them and in his declining mental state, seeks to demonstrated his value through grotesque molestation of public property.

Those are individual examples of course, but the government we currently have, while supported by the Puritan class, disturbingly features men of vast wealth, getting wealthier, with a government that operates to fork over more money to those who already have it.  The MAGA masses, which stand to grow poorer, and in the case of the agricultural sector are very much already suffering that fate, deservedly after supporting Trump, continue to believe that the demented fool knows what he's doing.

I don't know the source of this, but this illustration perfectly depicts how MAGA populists treat Donald Trump.

This system is rotten to the core and it needs to be broken.  Broken down, broken up, and ended.

The hopes of either the Democrats or the Republicans waking up and addressing it seem slim. The GOP is so besotted with it's wealthy leaders that the Speaker of the House, who claims to be a devout Christian, is attempting to keep the release of the names of wealthy hebephiles secret.  Only wealth and power can explain that.  The Democrats, which since 1912 have claimed to be the part of the working man, flounder when trying to handle the economic plight of the middle class.  Both parties agree on only one thing, that being you must never consider a third party.  

It is really time for a third part in this country.

In reality, of course, there are some, but only one is worth considering in any fashion, that being the American Solidarity Party.  Perhaps it could pick up the gauntlet here and smack it across the face of the oligarchy.  Or perhaps local parties might do it.  In my state, I think that if enough conservative Republicans (real conservatives, not the Cassie Cravens, John Bear, Dave Simpson, Bob Ide, Chuck Gray servants of the Orange Golden Calf Republicans) it could be done locally.  The U.S. has a history, although its barely acknowledged, of local parties, including ones whose members often successfully run on the tick of two parties.  New York's Zohran Mamdani and David Dinkins, for example were both Democrats and members of the Democratic Socialist Party.  Democrats from Minnesota are actually members of the Democratic Farm Labor Party, which is an amalgamation of two parties.  There's no reason a Wyoming Party couldn't form and field its own candidates, some of whom could also run as Republicans.

Such a party, nationally or locally, needs to be bold and take on the oligarchy. There's no time to waste on this, as the oligarchy gets stronger every day.  And such candidates will meet howls of derision.  Locally Californian Chuck Gray, who ironically has looked like the Green Peace Secretary of State on some issues, will howl about how they're all Communist Monarchist Islamic Stamp Collectors.  And some will reason to howl, such as the wealthy landlord in the state's legislature.

The reason for that is simple.  Such a party would need to apply, and apply intelligently, the principals of subsidiarity, solidarity and the land ethic. It would further need to be scientific, agrarianistic, and distributist. 

The first thing, nationally or locally, that such a party should do is bad the corporate ownership of retail outlets.  Ban it.  That would immediately shift retail back to the middle class, but also to the family unit.  A family might be able to own two grocery or appliance stores, for example, but probably not more than that.

The remote and corporate ownership of rural land needs to come to an immediate end as well.  No absentee landlords.  People owning agricultural land should be only those people making a living from it.

That model, in fact, should apply overall to the ownership of land.  Renting land out, for any reason, ought to be severely restricted.  The maintenance of a land renting system, including residential rent, creates landlords, who too often turn into Lords.

On land, the land ethic ought to be applied on a legal and regulatory basis. The American concept of absolute ownership of land is a fraud on human dignity.  Ownership of land is just, but not the absolute ownership.  You can't do anything you want on your property, nor should you be able to, including the entry by those engaged in natural activities, such as hunting, fishing, or simply hiking, simply because you are an agriculturalist.

While it might be counterintuitive in regard to subsidiarity, it's really the case, in this context, that the mineral resources underneath the surface of the Earth should belong to the public at large, either at the state, or national, level.  People make no contribution whatsoever to the mineral wealth being there. They plant nothing and they do not stock the land, like farmers do with livestock.  It's presence or absence is simply by happenstance and allowing some to become wealthy and some in the same category not simply by luck is not fair.  It 

Manufacturing and distribution, which has been address, is trickier, but at the end of the day, a certain amount of employee ownership of corporations in this category largely solves the problem.  People working for Big Industry ought to own a slice of it.

And at some level, a system which allows for the accumulation of obscene destructive levels of wealth is wrong.  Much of what we've addressed would solve this.  You won't be getting rich in retail if you can only have a few stores, for example.  And you won't be a rich landlord from rent if most things just can't be rented.  But the presence of the massively wealthy, particularly in an electronic age, continues to be vexing.  Some of this can be addressed by taxation. The USCCB has stated  that "the tax system should be continually evaluated in terms of its impact on the poor.” and it should be.  The wealthy should pay a much more progressive tax rate.

These are, of course, all economic, or rather politico-economic matters. None of this addresses the great or stalking horse social issues of the day.  We'll address those, as we often have, elsewhere.  But the fact of the matter is, right now, the rich and powerful use these issues to distract.  Smirky Mike Johnson may claim to be a devout Christian, but he's prevented the release of names of men who raped teenage girls.  Donald Trump may publicly state that he's worried about going to Hell, but he remains a rich serial polygamist.  J.D. Vance may claim to be a devout Catholic, but he spends a lot of time lying through his teeth.

And, frankly, fix the economic issues, and a lot of these issues fix themselves.

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.

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: A lack of the land ethic in office.

Going Feral: A lack of the land ethic in office.: 

A lack of the land ethic in office.

Back when I was 18 years old and first registered to vote, I registered as a Republican.  The first President I voted for was Ronald Reagan.

Soon thereafter, relative terms, and certainly before I went to the University of Wyoming I changed my registration to Democrat.  Wildlands had a lot to do with that, maybe everything, almost, to do with that.  Sometime prior to the Fall of 1983 I'd concluded that the Democrats wanted to protect nature, where as Ronald Reagan's Administration, with James Watt as the Secretary of the Interior, most definitely didn't care about it.

I was a Democrat for a very long time, but I often voted Republican, following a family trait of really voting very independently.  If you aren't thinking about the person you are actually voting for, you aren't thinking.  I voted, I know, for our Democratic Governors, but I also voted, I know, for some Republican Congressional candidates.  Starting prior to the 2000 election I started to consider 3d parties.  Some time after that I became disgusted with the Democrats constant embrace of abortion and changed my political affiliation to none.  By that time a lot of Wyoming Democrats were feeling the same way and a lot of them drifted into the GOP, some so solidly that they're regarded as stalwart traditional Republicans now, which in a lot of ways, they are.

I also eventually came into the GOP.  

I was comfortable, if often upset, with the GOP up until it nominated Donald Trump for the Oval Office the first time, which absolutely horrified me and still does.  This term, which is illegitimate (Trump is a seditionist who has not had the ban from holding office lifted upon him by Congress), has been bad beyond my fears as to what it would be.  Trump is all about land rape on the land.

We're back to the 1970s, I fear.

Backcountry Hunters & Anglers Condemns Effort to Roll Back Public Lands Rule

Posted by Nadia Marji | September 12, 2025

Trump moves to nix Public Lands rule; Alfalfa exports data dump

Also re-upping and freeing-up a piece on political violence and rhetoric

I still am registered as a Republican, but I constantly debate it. The Wyoming "Sweet Home Alabama" pack of carpetbaggers Freedumb Caucus has gained control of the Legislature and is busy driving through the state's culture like the Dukes' of Hazzard through Hazzard County in the Gen. Lee.  It's disgusting.  There''s some reason to believe that this is changing, but it isn't changing quickly enough.  Wyoming's GOP Congressional delegation supported the land raping proposal by the Senator from Deseret, Mike Lee, in spite of the majority of Wyomingite's being opposed to it.  "Your dumb" was the practical reaction to Wyoming voters from one of the three.

If you aren't a registered Republican, you aren't going to get to have a say in the primary, which is why I'm still there. Am I one of the RINO's that Chuck Gray cries about?  If the current GOP reflects the Republican Party, I am.  There's no alternative here, however.

This is all appalling.  

Lex Anteinternet: Public Lands demand Action This Day.

Lex Anteinternet: Public Lands demand Action This Day.:  

Public Lands demand Action This Day.

 

It appears the Big Ugly Bill with Mike Lee's scheme to sell public lands that fall within the former putative state of Deseret, which he acts as if he represents, will occur today or tomorrow.

Call your people in Congress today and inform them you are opposed.

If you live in Wyoming, inform them that they better start putting in their resumes for post Congressional punditry right now, as you'll not vote for them for anything ever again.  They aren't representing you if they vote for this.

In spite of overwhelming public opposition, Mike Lee's public land sale provision remains in the budget reconciliation bill.

Action this day.

Public Lands demand Action This Day.

 

It appears the Big Ugly Bill with Mike Lee's scheme to sell public lands that fall within the former putative state of Deseret, which he acts as if he represents, will occur today or tomorrow.

Call your people in Congress today and inform them you are opposed.

If you live in Wyoming, inform them that they better start putting in their resumes for post Congressional punditry right now, as you'll not vote for them for anything ever again.  They aren't representing you if they vote for this.

Public lands rally draws large, varied crowd to Wyoming statehouse

Public lands rally draws large, varied crowd to Wyoming statehouse

Hundreds Cheer At Public Lands Rally As Provenza Calls Sen. Mike Lee A 'Jackass

As Wyoming protests, public land sell-off ‘just getting started’ - WyoFile

As Wyoming protests, public land sell-off ‘just getting started’ - WyoFile: Utah senator trims plans, calling targeted BLM land “unused,” “mismanaged” and “only appropriate for housing.”

Going Feral: What's the deal with Mike Lee?

Going Feral: What's the deal with Mike Lee?: 

What's the deal with Mike Lee?

Mike Lee is like the cook who keeps putting nuts in fudge.  You tell them it's an infamnia, but they insist on doing it anyway, and telling you that you'll like it.  

"It's only a few. . . ".  "They're not peanuts, they're walnuts. . . "  "You can pick them out. . . ".

It's disgusting, and you don't want it.

Lee went from aggressively trying to get a public land sales provision in the Big Ugly Bill only to meat a firestorm of opposition, from the right and left, about it.  Ultimately he started scaling it back before the Senate Parliamentarian pulled it, either because it was genuinely against Senate Rules or in order to keep people like John Barrasso from having to commit on it.

Lee, however, hasn't give up.  He's telling his opponents, which includes nearly everyone (but not Wyoming Congress woman Harriet Hageman) that he's "listened" and is coming back with a bill we'll all like.

Nobody is going to like this.

This is really bizarre at this point.  Lee is choosing a massively unpopular bill as his hill to die on, and politically, it might do that.  A former Utah Congressman went down in flames and had to resign over similar efforts a decade ago.

What's up with Lee?

Well, I have one theory I'll write another post on, on Lex Anteinternet.

But all the reasons given for this are, well, crap.

Things are changing, albeit slowly, in Utah.  Lee's seat is probably safe, but maybe not as safe as he thinks.  The seats of other Republicans supporting this idea are not safe.  Barrasso has laid low during the storm, Lummis came out for it early on, and Hageman is all in.  Hageman may very well have ended her political career by going so.

Suffice it to say, however, until the nut fudge gets thrown up against the wall and the cook loose cooking privildges, somebody is going to try to keep serving it.

Public land — land of the free — defines Wyoming

Public land — land of the free — defines Wyoming: Wyoming is many things to many people, but public land is why they come and why they stay, writes guest columnist Chris Madson.

The GOP Land Sales Abomination.

 

A Deep Look at the Mandatory Sale of Public Lands in the President’s Budget Bill Before the Senate

Land Sales, the Shifting Language in the Senate Bill, and the TWS Map

Watch Pete Dominick And Me Talk About About The Great Public Lands Heist

The Lee-Daines Amendment permits the sale of 295 million acres of public land

Going Feral: Looking for Nate Champion.

Going Feral: Looking for Nate Champion.: 

Looking for Nate Champion.

He which hath no stomach to this fight,

Let him depart; his passport shall be made,

And crowns for convoy put into his purse;

We would not die in that man's company

That fears his fellowship to die with us.

Shakespeare, Henry V.

The views of average Wyomingites, by a huge margin, are clear on public lands.  We want them to remain public.

And yet our Congressman voted to transfer 500,000 of FEderal land in Arizona and Utah over to private hands. It's clear that at least one of our Senators is okay with doing something similar in Teton County.

Wyomingites aren't in favor of this at all.  Indeed, one of the most rabid Trumpites I know actually expressed bewildered opposition to this.

So here's the problem, and the question.

Why are Wyomingites still supporting the people who support this?

Politics are varied and complicated.  The reasons that Wyoming has gone so far to the right in its recent politics are as well.  A lot of it has to do with social issues, abortion, transgenderism, immigration, and so on, and much of that, here, has to do with the death of the Democratic Party and there being, seemingly, no where else to go.

But at least on the local level there certainly is, and what Wyomingites are presently doing is not in their own best interest.

Much of what they're currently doing is, frankly, based on a host of lies.  Donald Trump was not the victim of a stolen election with Joe Biden won.  Joe Biden won.  Global warming is not a fib.  The long drift away from coal cannot be arrested.  The state's petroleum industry was never under any governmental assault (leases went up under Biden).  There is no war on the West.  The region's agricultural sector isn't under governmental attack, but rather under real estate developer attack.  The Democrats really weren't advancing gun control.  

But we've been bought off on a bunch of dramatic assertions designed to cause the rise up of what plaintiff's lawyers call our "lizard brain".

Well, now we have a whole host of legislators, many from out of state, who don't share local values at all, and a Congressional delegation that is more interested in supporting the agenda of the far right and its ostensible leader, a nearly 79 year old real estate developer suffering from dementia, than paying attention to what we actually believe.

And that's because that's exactly what we let them do.

In reality, those close to the inside know that John Barrasso doesn't believe  what he's supporting.  It's pretty clear from her past that Cynthia Lummis doesn't either.  Harriet Hageman, well she probably does, as she's a political family that has always had this set of views.  Having said that, and importantly, she intends to run for Governor next election and Chuck Gray, who is a Californian with very little connection to Wyoming, will run for House.

In the next election Wyomingites have a chance to make their views known, although they really need to start doing so right now.  That can have an impact.  John Barrasso, in the last election, adopted a whole host of new views he probably doesn't hold at all to hold off an attack from his right.  Lummis just quietly mostly didn't say what her views actually are the last time she ran, which she could do under the circumstances, and which leaves her room to maneuver.

Maneuvering will, it must be noted, need to occur.  In 2026 the House is going to be Democratic and the MAGA reign will be over, save for in Wyoming, where there's every reason to belive it will keep on keeping on.

The Wyoming Freedom Caucus of its day, the Johnson County invaders.

Much of this, we'd note, is perfectly consistent with Wyoming's history.  Early on Wyoming sent a solidly Republican group of legislatures to our solon in  Cheyenne in spite of its association with large outside agricultural interest which were oppressing local interest.  That didn't end until the invasion of Johnson County in 1892 which briefly swept the Republicans out of power, and brought Democrats into the legislature and which sent Governor Barber packing, although not until after he tried to actually remain as Governor a la Trump insurrection in a way.  That event, however, shows the electorate can react.  It also shows us that politicians can too, as Francis E. Warren managed to survive the event, career entact, when really she shouldn't have, by changing views.

And this is happening in Montana, which was a little in advance of Wyoming in tilting to the far right, right now.

Posted in

A new Montana majority defangs the far right

Just sitting and complaining "well that's not what we think" won't get much done.  

Politicians from any party ought to represent the views of their state.  They ought to also intelligently lead.  There's not much intelligence being manifested in the populist far right, which is mostly acting with a primitive response on a set of social issues combined with false beliefs, andy in Wyoming, with views they brought up from their own states which don't have much to do with us here.  We aren't Sweet Home Alabama.

But that won't happen unless Wyomingites educate themselves as to the truth, and what is truly going on, and how they're simply being fed raw meat for the dogs.  Until that occurs, we're going to go further into the abyss.

Feral Miscellania.

 

Tribal leaders and advocates rally against controversial plan to sell public lands in Nevada and Utah

 

Tribal leaders and advocates rally against controversial plan to sell public lands in Nevada and Utah

Friday, May 9, 2025

Remember that some things aren’t for sale

Remember that some things aren’t for sale: Wyoming's congressional delegation should review the "Code of the West" before they sell off our public lands, attorney Ryan Semerad writes.

Thursday, May 8, 2025

Lex Anteinternet: Capitalism is based on the idol of money.

Lex Anteinternet: Capitalism is based on the idol of money.: 

Capitalism is based on the idol of money.

In reality, capitalism is based on the idol of money. The lure of gain gradually destroys all social bonds. Capitalism devours itself. Little by little, the market destroys the value of work. Man becomes a piece of merchandise. He is no longer his own. The result is a new form of slavery, a system in which a large part of the population is dependent on a little caste. 

Robert Cardinal Sarah.

Wednesday, May 7, 2025

Scott Talbott, 63, pushed Wyoming Game and Fish colleagues to be wildlife advocates

Scott Talbott, 63, pushed Wyoming Game and Fish colleagues to be wildlife advocates: Beloved warden rose through the ranks to become second-longest-tenured director in the state agency’s history.