Trump's going to lose this case, which will be another example of the wheels coming off of his administration. His presence at the Court will not impress anyone, let alone the Justices. Trump seems to have lost any sense that he's not that impressive to about 70% of Americans.
His attendance is, frankly, appalling.
Cont (April 1, 2026)
JUSTICE NEIL GORSUCH: Do you think Native Americans today are birthright citizens under your test and under your friend's test?
D. JOHN SAUER, U.S. SOLICITOR GENERAL: I think so. I mean, obviously, they've been granted citizenship by statute ...
GORSUCH: Put aside the statute. Do you think they're birthright citizens?
SAUER: No, I think the clear understanding that everybody agrees in the congressional debates is that the children of tribal Indians are not birthright citizens.
GORSUCH: I understand that's what they said. But your test is the domicile of the parents, and that would be the test you'd have us apply today, right?
SAUER: Yes, yes. So, if a tribal Indian, for example, you know, gives up allegiance to ...
GORSUCH: Are tribal members born today birthright citizens?
SAUER: I think so, on our test, if they're lawfully domiciled here. I'm not s—, I have to think that through, but that's my reaction.
GORSUCH: I'll take the yes. That's alright.
Gee Louise, this administration is really something.
It turns out that Trump left after Justice Jackson pretty much eviscerated the solicitor, D. John Sauer, who was sent to argue this. Sauer's career really ought to be over for such a lame argument that was so obviously legal deficient. He's a former Missouri solicitor and, more important, one of the lawyers who was willing to represent Trump in the past.
April 14, 2026
Trump predictably lost his defamation suit against the Washington Post.
And perhaps something will happen on Gray's ignoring Wyoming's voter confidentiality laws.
April 17, 2026
An attempted end run to fund the garden shed was again blocked by the Federal Court.
This was obvious, but will remain unrecognized for quite some time, for the same reason that coal is almost dead, but people don't grasp it.
Average people's ability to really grasp an existential change in something is pretty poor as a rule. It's not so much that people choose to live in the past as it is that they have no grasp that the past of their younger lives and of their parents lives, the latter of which a lot of people hold to in a sort of mythical way, evolves. We see that a lot in the U.S. right now.
The entire imaginary economy of Donald Trump is one that's grounded in a mythical 1970s, when he was young and clubbing and men lusting after girls in their teens was basically okay, du e to the sexual revolution. MAGA, for its part, imagines a mythical 1950s economy, not understanding why the economy of the 1950s was the way it was. In both instances, and particularly in regard to the 1970s economy, things were not as rosy as imagined.
Coal has been dying ever since the Royal Navy went to oil for ships. We've discussed that before here:
Coal is not coming back. In fact, it's demise is accelerating. Lot of the globe, including China, in spite of what a demented Donald Trump thinks, is racing towards renewables. Trump can't really imagine it as he's 80 years old and in the 70s there weren't very many big windmills, although even then there was a push towards renewable power.
Indeed, that push was started by the Arab Oil Embargo and people have been working on the technology ever since. Now renewables are cheaper than fossil fuels for power generation. Only nuclear can compete.
Every since the 70s engineers have been working on electric vehicles as well. Their day has arrived.
And Donald Trump started a war that will accelerate the pace of this change, rapidly. Trump might end up being recalled as the greenest President ever, accidentally.
The change just won't be a switch to clean electrical power, and that switch is rapidly coming and no amount of John Barrasso and Harriet Hageman calling for the mythical "clean coal" will stop it. It's also going to be a switch away from the sort of vehicle based economy we have now. People aren't going to stop owning cars, but already a younger generation really isn't all that enamored with them. Self driving vehicles, as much as I hate the idea, are coming in. With them will come self driving semi tractors and more importantly, in my view, remotely driven electric trains.
There's no reason that railroads can't be controlled like giant model train layouts. Model trains already provide the model for it. We're not far from that day.
That day is coming now whether Donald Trump, Harriet Hageman, John Barrasso, or people with an emotional tie to fossil fuels like it or not. Your livelihood depending on it won't matter either.
U.S. Marines land at Da Nang, March 8, 1965. It was just a few. . and then some airmen. . . and then the perimeter had to be protected. . . and soon, 50,000 U.S. troops were dead.
March 31, 2026
King Donny can't figure out how to get out of his war. The Iranians can't and won't surrender. The Iranians won't leave the Straits of Hormuz alone. The NATO countries, several of which have been threatened by King Donny with the use of military force, have replied to his request for naval assistance with variants of "fuck you and the horse you rode in on" and are perfectly happy to watch the US, which they don't like under Trump, and Israel, which they generally don't like, stew in the fat of Donald's juices.
Faced with this, the more rah rah, let's engage in a Protestant Crusade against Islam crowed, and the more sober military minds who have read history, are causing Marines to be deployed. Chances are, they aren't equally enthusiastic about deploying them, as the results of that will be a full scale and even more illegal war than the one we're currently in.
The economy, meanwhile, is turning to a steaming pile of shit, like everything else Donald touches. The stock market is supposedly the only thing the legacy seeking King Donny pays attention to, which probably means that his oligarchic connections are being hurt and calling him up on his cell phone telling him to get out before the wreckage matches that of the East Wing. King Donny, meanwhile, probably doesn't want to be remembered as the idiot who got 20,000 ground troops or more killed. So, as of yesterday, he's thinking of surrendering by simply pulling out.
Overnight, the Iranians targeted Diego Garcia with missiles but not reached their targets for one reason or another, including their being intercepted. Diego Garcia was not previously thought to be within range of Iranian missiles, and it still might not be, given that they didn't hit. Or it may be, or it may be that Iran has improved the capabilities of their missiles over the last couple of weeks.
Iran is busy destroying Middle Eastern oil infrastructure. The economic impacts will last for years.
March 21, 2026, cont:
Iran and the US/Israel exchanged attack nuclear facilities today.
March 22, 2026
Trump announced that if Iran does not open the Straits of Hormuz within 48 hours the US will commit a war crime and start to destroy power plants.
This would be flat out an illegal at, it serves no military purpose whatsoever.
March 23, 2026
King Donny claimed this morning that the US and Iran were in productive talks, so he was suspending offensive operations for several day.
Iran called BS on the claim.
Nobody really knows what's going on, but my guess, and it would guess, is that King Donny is going to claim there was a secret deal to end the war and call it over. My additional guess is that somebody got to him. Maybe the military, maybe the top (lap) dogs in the GOP, or maybe another oligarch, but somebody.
Listening to the weekend shows makes it plaint how much trouble Trump is really in. None of the people you'd expect to be present on all three were present on the two I listened to. Scott Bessant was on Meet the Press sounding like a complete fool. Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy drew the short stick for This Week and sounded like he regretted it.
Bessant was downright insulting to the host, even if he sounded like a buffoon doing it.
What's increasingly clear is that sometime yesterday somebody or something got to Trump. The war isn't going the way he believed it would, and now he want out. He's just looking for a cover story to get out. The problem he faces is that none of the cover stories for getting into it will square with that, so he's in a bind. The strategy being tested is the claim that he made a deal, even if the Iranians are denying that they're close to making a deal.
Believing that lie won't be too much to ask diehard Trump fans to do. They'll believe anything. But it is too much for independents and some not wholly convinced Republicans to do. The next part of the problem will be that petroleum prices will take months or even years to go down. That showed up on Meet the Press in which a Trump voter called Trump "a worthless piece of shit".
cont:
Pete, I think you were the first one to speak up. You said, 'Let's do it.'
Trump.
Pete is now the designated fall guy. He better start looking for a new job.
March 24, 2026
In spite of King Donny's declaration that the United States was in talks with Iran, which Iran denies, as Donny is an outrageous liar, the war continued on yesterday, unabated.
Cont:
According to the NYT, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is pushing Trump to continue the war.
We seem to just be regional suckers to the Middle East.
March 25, 2026
In addition to the Marines already deployed to the Middle East, 1,000 troops of the 82nd Airborne are being deployed to the region, all for a war that King Donny claims was won several days ago.
Pakistan, which it self as been at war recently with Afghanistan, volunteered to host talks between the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. has agreed to attend, Iran, has not.
Trump claimed yesterday that Iran gave the United States a very big oil related present, but he wasn't going to say what it is.
Um. . . .
March 27, 2026
King Donny extended his deadline in which for the US to commit an additional war crime by destroying electrical power sites. He claims negotiations are going well.
Some negotiations probably really are occurring, but it's not clear at all what they are. As they won't result in an end to an Iranian nuclear program, effectively what the US is doing is looking for a way out a la Paris Peace Accords.
On the other hand, Tehran increased its grip on the Straits of Hormuz yesterday, so the entire story of Iran negotiating may just be another Trump lie.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy, a real president, visited the Middle East yesterday as his country is helping several Middle Eastern countries counter Iranian drones.
March 28, 2026
The Houthis entered the war by firing ballistic missiles at Israel.
Donald Trump is now babbling on this topic nearly every day, and not making a lick of sense any time he does so. As if that's not enough, his cabinet lavishes praise on him in a way that will quite frankly be used against their reputations, and that of the country that they purport to serve, forever.
March 30, 2026
The illegitimate administration sent Iran the same list of 15 demands in the form of demands to be accepted to end the war. Iran told the U.S. to stuff it, and presented its own demands, also pointing out that it doesn't trust the US enough to enter negotiations.
Listening to the weekend shows and other soundings out there, it's increasingly clear that Republicans feel uneasy about the situation developing with King Donny. A common theme now is, "well, we should have done this years ago, um, and are now, um, and well, we have to see it through".
None of those things are anywhere near true and they know it.
We are getting increasingly close to the commitment of ground troops. Even some of the stalwarts that apologize for Trump's dementia on a nearly daily basis re now saying that requires Congressional approval. Well, Trump isn't going to ask for approval. He's just going to do it, if he does, and he probably is going to.
This is an election season, and those in Congress in the GOP should be made to answer for this illegal delegation of force to a demented octogenarian.
cont:
Reports hold that Russia shared satellite images of Prince Sultan US base in Saudi Arabia with Iran right before their attack that injured our troops. Ukrainian intelligence has confirmed it.
And Trump. . . well he's letting a ship of Russian oil offload in Cuba, which is otherwise being embargoed (blockaded?) by the U.S.
Odd, eh?
March 31, 2026
Iran hit a fully laden Kuwait oil tanker in port in Dubai.
Trump yesterday indicated that he might just abandon the Persian Gulf with the Straits of Hormuz closed.
Republicans desperate to excuse a war that's not going to end soon, and which right now looks as if it'll either require a decades long American ground presence in an illegal war, or an inglorious American retreat, either of which feature a major recession, if not depression, in the near term, are parading a series of bs excuses for what demented Don did.
The reality of it is quite simple. Bibi wanted to take Iran out while the US could be duped into going along with it. Only Bibi and Vlad seem to have any pull over King Donny, although for different unknown reasons. Anyhow, this is a war for Israel, that's what it's for.
The current line is that we've been fighting Iran for 47 years. No, we haven't been. Iran has been a bad actor for 47 years, but we haven't been fighting them for nearly five decades. Moreover, most of Iran's anger with us, as illegitimate and wrong as it is, is vicarious anger over US support for Israel.
I'm not saying that US support for Israel is wholly wrong, but it has frankly been often beyond what it likely should have been, and that's been the case since Israel became a country. It has a right to exist, but it doesn't have a right to unqualified US support, and support that has not involved American Allies that are in the region, to the the extent which it has. Anyhow, Iran's hatred of the US is largely due to US support of Israel, which is 100% what this war is about. Netanyahu saw a chance to take out, he thought, a decades long enemy, and took it. Unfortunately for him, he forgot about what an unreliable ally the US really is and that Trump's thoughts tend to be farts in windstorms.
The other major claim is that Iran was going to turn into a nuclear power and we needed to stop it. If that's the case, that was clearly going to involve a ground invasion. You can't bomb nuclear material into non existence. Trump may stupidly have thought he could cause the Iranian regime to fall in this fashion, which if so was flat out dumb, but he's not a very advanced thinker and his experience is in real estate, not realpolitik. He didn't cause an Iranian uprising and he didn't even get the Kurds to move on the government.
So here we are.
Concluding this war successfully will require a Vietnam War level of military participation and two decades to complete. At some point Congress will have to get involved. As Americans have no stomach for such an enterprise, what's much more likely to happen is a largescale conventional invasion of the country after a series of aerial war crimes, followed by substantial US troop deaths, followed by an inglorious withdrawal and retreat.
In other words, we're likely to lose the war.
Not before it expands into the US however.
We have every reason to believe that Iran has sleeper cells in the US. What hasn't happened that much yet, however, are proxy attacks here. That's coming, and it'll come in more than one form. We aren't ready for it, and we're not going to get ready for it. Further, both China and Russia will assist Iran on this where they can get away with it.
Along with that, we're going to see inflation and a recession within the next few months at a level we have no experienced since the 1970s. We'll be lucky, quite frankly, if we don't experience a depression.
So, welcome to King Donald's Forever War.
cont:
The maximum level of outright stupidity that is constantly demonstrated by this illegitimate administration is really on display today with Pete Hegseth. For example:
The president was clear this morning in his Truth that there are countries around the world who ought to be prepared to step up on this critical waterway as well. Last time I checked there was supposed to be a big bad Royal Navy that could be prepared to do things like that.
This is an illegal war on the part of the US, dumbass, and you don't get to declare war for other countries.
As far as President Trump and boots on the ground, I don't understand why the base wouldn't have faith in his ability to execute on this. Look at his track record.
Seriously? Where to begin. Cutting spending. . . nope, didn't happen. Avoid wars. . . nope, didn't happen. Make America Great Again. . . more like sending it into the dumpster.
What he's shown himself to be really good at is not getting the Epstein files released, although even there, there are enough cracks to raise the question if he was one of the rich men raping teenagers. It's not proven, but there's enough there to wonder.
cont:
I have a suggestion for you: Number 1, buy from the US, we have plenty, and Number 2, build up some delayed courage, go to the Strait, and just TAKE IT,'
'You'll have to start learning how to fight for yourself, the USA won't be there to help you anymore, just like you weren't there for us.'
And so, the TACO signals he's retreating.
Iran, apparently, will be the victor. People died for nothing whatsoever. Those serving in the military were made suckers.
As we all were. Everything is more expensive, people are dead.
To put it bluntly, we are really up shit creek without a paddle. At no point since the end of the Cold War have we been in this dire of situation, and it's all due to one demented billionaire.
It'll be the first one controlled by the Confederate Carpetbagger Caucus and therefore the first Wyoming legislature ever that doesn't have a strong element of moderation built into it. The carpetbaggers of the WFC captured it, backed in no small part by riding the Trump wave, the collapse of the stability of the oil and gas industry (which was never all that stable) and oddly enough a series of warm winters that would have sent a lot of these people back to where they were from. Instead, they stayed and brought their Dixiecrat disgruntlement into the state.
It seems that people are actually starting to wake up to them in numbers for the first time. They're gutting UW, education, and local governments, as people living in 1930s Alabama don't need none o' that stuff. They've brought in with them a certain American sort of far right Evangelical view as well, something extremely foreign to the state. And they're backed by money from out of state, one of which sends around Instagram messages as "Honor Wyoming" but which does anything but.
Wyomingites who thought the WFC were just conservative have been shocked to find that ain't so.
The thing is, it might be too late. Or it might not be. They have the numbers not to do a lot of things, but they don't have the numbers to override vetoes.
This is a budget session, so it should only have 20 working days. That hasn't stopped legislators from trying to introduce all sorts of things in the past, and it won't this year. Here' are the prefiled bills:
There are a lot of weird laws in this pack, but I'm just going to start off with this WFC one. HB 01119 would ban the use of "foreign law" in Wyoming, and under its own terms, accidentally wipe out the complete body of civil law in the state, which specifically was adopted as being English Common Law.
This is an example of the sort of ignorant paranoia on the far right that preserved abortion in Wyoming.
Cont:
The Governor and Chief Justice spoke.
Senate File 51, allowing for transferable landowner tags, a terrible wildlife privatization concept, died on introduction.
Prohibiting infanticide, I'd note, is something I agree with, but it's the far right's fault that it was preserved in Wyoming, which they need to wake up to.
Footnotes:
*In past years I ran the table of bills and much of the text of various bills on the trailing thread for that year's legislature. It made for lots of threads that grew really long.
That's hard to slog through, so this year I'm trying something different and putting that stuff on a seperate page. It's up as a link now, but it'll likely go down as a link, although still be possible to bring up from the threads, when the 2026 Legislature is thankfully over.
February 10, 2025
The Confederate Caucus isn't starting off with much success. Wyoming voters apparently have awakened about them and their representation is taking note.
School funding bill dies in Wyoming House: The Legislature is constitutionally required to undergo so-called ‘recalibration.’ The bill, drafted in the legislative off season, was unpopular among educators.
It is, although it does point out the need to end the WFC's chapter in Wyoming politics, as next year may well be different.
Wyoming Freedom Caucus calls foul on committee bill decimation: In a blow to the Republican group’s majority bloc, 21 committee bills failed introduction on Monday in the House— more than twice the number the caucus killed in the last budget session, when it was in the minority.
Funny, the Confederate Caucus was just beginning to make a stumbling effort to counter the growing "you're batshit crazy" movement countering them with "it's democracy", dragging out Cassie Cravens to with some potted meat, when now they're crying foul about how democracy works.
Amongst the WFC's members, a fellow in the news a lot recently had a bad result.
It's interesting in part as Steinmetz, the author, is an "ally" of the WFC, and she's breaking ranks.
I will say the "hidden" aspect of this is complete crap. Anyone who paid attention, including anyone in the WFC who was following, knew that this would gut local entities like a fish. For the most part, they simply didn't care.
Indeed, the carpetbagger element of this is really strong here. WFC supporters include a fair amount of carpetbaggers who moved in here from other state, bought property at inflated values, and don't want to be taxed. They really don't care if towns and cities don't have services or if kids aren't educated. They raised their kids elsewhere and, American style, abandoned them somewhere else. They're happy to sit i in their McMansions in a town with no local services as they're old and they aren't going to use them.
But now legislators are hearing from people who are from here, and who want a police department, a fire department, decent towns, and to educate their kids.
On the last item, the ghost of the constitutional amendment regarding "health care" now appears in the legislature, which provided the reason that some Republicans voted against the bill.
February 14, 2026, Valentine's Day.
Wyoming Freedom Caucus in Cheyenne.
Well, the first week of the legislature is over and it proved to be an interesting, and surprising, one.
The Confederate Carpetbagger Caucus went into the session with its orders from out of state interests and extreme right wing agenda and ran right into, well, Wyomingites.
It also ran into its own ignorance.
Full of piss and vinegar, the collection of carpetbaggers and carpetbagger drones simply figured it had the numbers and it was going to return the state to November 11, 1620. It forgot, apparently, that in a budget session it needs a supermajority to introduce legislation, and while it may have the majority, it doesn't have that.
It was also taken off guard by a sudden rise in attention to it by regular people from the state, which now that they are more informed, are starting to organize against it. They haven't been able to get back on their feet from that, with perhaps the most pathetic response being Cassie Craven's "but don't you still love us?".
We never did.
All this is bad news for the WFC as it may have shot its bolt. Candidates are starting to come out to take them on, as evidenced by the Mayor of Bar Nunn coming out against Freedom Caucuser Bill Allemand.
And the exposing of their money supply hasn't been a good thing for any of them, even though those who were watching them carefully knew about it all along. Likewise, that they were fed canned legislation was well known, but it was not known that they were basically fed instructions on what to do.
Amongst those whom its not good news for is Chuck Gray, who turned the state's voters roles over to his beloved, Donald Trump, because Donny asked for them. Gray adores Trump like a teenage bride adores her husband and is making that the gist of his campaign, Trump Love, but he's responsible for a bunch of WFC voting bills that went down in flames. He's running for the House against Jillian Balow, Reid Ransner and David Giralt. I suspect that this sort of thing really starts to boost Balow. Gray is really detested by a lot of people to start with, and Giralt to unknown. Rasner is a gadfly. Gray's term as Secretary of State end in January, 2027 and if he doesn't secure the House his political career in the state is at an end.
Amongst the bill casualties so far has been the bill on abortion. This also signifies, fwie, a return of Wyoming politics to the middle. I'm opposed to abortion so I would like to have seen that bill advance, but it's the case that for eons Wyoming Republicans opposed abortion more or less, but wouldn't act to make it illegal. The first time that the legislature ever passed anything doing that was right after Dodds, and that's the statute, or statutes, that died in court. It was killed there by an amendment to the constitution that was designed to protect individual health care decisions from the fantasy of AHCA death panes, and it became a death panel itself. So effectively the state returns to the status quo ante on abortion, thanks to the GOP in the first place.
I suppose it shouldn't surprise anyone too much to learn that Bextel, the check giver, is from Alabama, although she lived in Guatemala as a Protestant missionary, that part of the world having Protestant missions that seek to convert people who are already Christians. She's been in Wyoming about twenty years.
It'll probably turn out not to be criminal, but the act of giving out checks on the floor was monumentally dumb, as was the act of receiving them that way.
Exactly what backers of Art 1 § 38 should have known would occur. Lampoon posted under fair use exception as I couldn't think of a more applicable illustration.
Wyoming Constitution Art. 1, § 38. Right of health care access
(a) Each competent adult shall have the right to make his or her own health care decisions. The parent, guardian or legal representative of any other natural person shall have the right to make health care decisions for that person.
(b) Any person may pay, and a health care provider may accept, direct payment for health care without imposition of penalties or fines for doing so.
(c) The legislature may determine reasonable and necessary restrictions on the rights granted under this section to protect the health and general welfare of the people or to accomplish the other purposes set forth in the Wyoming Constitution.
(d) The state of Wyoming shall act to preserve these rights from undue governmental infringement.
Hmm, depends a bit on how he voted on the dumbass Art. 1, § 38..
'Lange has a point, as much as I hate to admit it. But the party that really owes the state an explanation is the paranoid sots who backed the Constitutional amendment set out above from 2024, and those who voted for it, about a right to make your own medical decisions, which you already had, as they feared AHCA meant death panels.
That was freakin' absurd.
Lange, did you vote for it?
This was really predictable. That set it up. It was obvious.
Nobody is more opposed to abortion, which I regard as infanticide, than me. Indeed, my views in this general area are probably far more "conservative" than most peoples.
And to extend it, I'm not in favor of the death penalty either.
And, no, I don't think abortion is health care by a long measure, but if this hadn't been passed, the question would never have come up.
But to set this in the constitution of the state, what the crap did you think would happen? It puts the court in the place of making an existential decision.
A really easy one to make, in my view, but if you take my view, on natural rights, a lot of right wingers wouldn't be very comfortable, very soon.
This is what happens when a dumb, paranoid, amendment to the Constitution is made.
The amendment that brought down the state's abortion laws was passed due to right wing paranoia that the AHCA would create "death panels". That fear was frankly stupid, but it was adopted by far right Republicans who really believed it. The prime architect of the amendment has gone on record that he'd feel awful if the amendment caused the abortion laws to fail, and in fact he should feel awful.
A major turn occured in the Wyoming election when all three of Wyoming's congressional delegation members supported Mike Lee's Deseret Dream to swipe Federal lands for land raping purposes. The move was hugely, overwhelmingly, unpopular in Wyoming, but the delegation in part assessed the voters dim, and in part, trusted on them to forget.
Right now, it doesn't look like they will.
And the candidate are beginning to line up. We have, so far:
Governor:
GOP.
Eric Barlow. Barlow is a state senator from the 23rd district and announced earlier this week. So far, he's receiving a lot of accolades from the none Freedom Caucus Republicans and condemnations from the populist Freedom Caucus, which frankly makes him the front runner.
Brent Bien. Bien is retired U.S. Marine Corps colonel and another member of the recent Wyoming crowd who declares "after sucking on the government tit my whole life I hate the government and know best for people who haven't had such secure jobs as me". He's on the far right.
Joseph Kibler. Kibler is a web designer and might as well drop out right now.
Reid Ranser. Far right gadfly who doomed his chances, which were non existent anyway, by filing a lawsuit which states that he's a homosexual and was slandered by certain GOP figures. The slander aside, branding yourself as a homosexual is a bad political move in this atmosphere. He's highly likely not to be the only homosexual running for a statewide office or perhaps in office, but Wyomingites tend not to draw attention to themselves in that manner during an era such as the one we currently live in.
Waiting in the wings are Chuck Gray, who is already campaigning for something on the far right wing of the far right, save when it comes to nuclear power, were the populist are flower children, so he is too. Holding Gray up is Harriet Hageman, who seems likely to try to run, but whose position in opposition to the Federal lands is likely to sink any campaign of hers, or at least seriously damage it.
Also waiting in the wings is Mark Gordon, who has clearly not wanted Gray to replace him. With Barlow throwing his broad brim in the ring, he likely won't run now.
Pinedale calls itself the "Icebox of the Nation" and the introduction of oil and gas operations near it are relatively new. Given both of those, it clearly didn't drink the GOP Koolaide on global warming being a fib.
Hageman has so far received rough crewed treatment in Pinedale, Rock Springs, and Laramie. I suspect she would in Casper as well. I also suspect she might want to start thinking about selling her house in D.C. and looking to move back to her brother's ranch, as she may be out of work next year.
Wyoming has been a prime example of "if I make money from it, it must be perfectly okay". If we could grow big fields of opium here, we'd be loudly in favor of heroin.
Given that, and given that a lot of Wyomingites are imports from warmer regions of the country, people here are huge climate change deniers, even though if you've lived here your whole life its extremely obvious that its going on.
And Hageman comes from the agricultural which is bizarrely resistant to accepting the reality of climate change, even though if nothing is done, it'll destroy their livelihoods.
So she no doubt thought stepping in front of a Sublette County audience would mean that the "climate change is a fib" line would be well received. It wasn't.
Something is finally really starting to change here. Part of it is that people are waking up to reality, and part of it is that Hageman took a stand for something Wyomingites detest, transfering the Federal lands, and then basically asserted we were dumb for not supporting it ourselves. She's so all in on these positions, she really can't change them, and stepping in front of audiences makes her situation worse.
August 20, 2025
Congressman Elsie Stephanik was booked off of a New York stage two days ago.
Stephanik likely sacrificed her career for Trump.
Elsie of course crawled into bed with Trump. She originally was opposed to him. Harriet Hageman, on the other hand, was never openly opposed to Trump and took the seat of her former friend Liz Cheney opportunistically.
Hageman has had a lot of simple adoring fans since that time, but the bloom is really off the rose. She was booed in deeply Republican Sublette County last week, and received a hostile crowd in Casper on Monday night. Indeed, the Casper event was notably not only for the outright hostility to Hageman, but to extent to which a lot of Republicans flatly did not show up leaving a lot of room in the auditorium.
Hageman had her sights set on the Governor's mansion and still might. If nothing else, she's doubling down on her position on everything. But that ship has likely sailed, and she stands a good chance, right now, of having to vacate her Congressional seat.
being yet another carpetbagger coming in and complaining of too much bureaucracy, particularly in a state you just moved to, isn't actually different.
September 30, 2025
Sec. Gray has flagged over 2,000 Wyoming voters for County Clerks to investigate s voters who may no longer reside in Wyoming.
This entire topic has been a fictional bee in Gray's bonnet.
Progressive Palestinian American Palestinian State Rep. Ruwa Romman has entered the Georgia Governor's race.
October 22, 2025
The Barlow Effect: Candidates can’t officially join the race till next year, but an unmistakably powerful ingredient has entered the mix, writes columnist Rod Miller.
On the last item, Thomas Massie and Marjorie Taylor Greene are in a flat out war with Trump, and Trump is losing. Greene has gone from one of Trump's most loyal adherents to an outright anti Trump insurgent.
There's a year to go, of course, but Trump is already acting like unstable and clearly under pressure. Having pulled out all the stops to prevent the release of the Epstein files, he now is claiming to once again support the release, putting the Senate in the hot seat. If Trump is acting behind the scenes at the Senate, it puts Senators in a terrible spot at the same time that they have the example of Massie and Greene, who aren't being hurt by opposing Trump.
Locally, it'll be interesting to see if Lummis and Hageman remain lashed to the deck of Trump. I bet Lummis won't.
December 11, 2025
From the New York Times.
Indiana Lawmakers Reject Trump’s New Political Map
Republicans hold an overwhelming majority in the Indiana Senate, but more than a dozen of them defied the president’s wishes, voting against a map aimed at adding Republicans in Congress.
December 19, 2025
Cynthia Lummis will not run for her Senate seat next year. We can bet that Hageman will run for it and probably already is. It'd be interesting to see if Gordon runs for the seat.
This means Gray, whose political hopes were dead, will now run for Congress, although I doubt he will get Hageman's seat. It'll be interesting to see if Stubson runs.
Elise Stefanik is dropping out of the New York Governor's race and will not run for Congress next year.
December 20, 2025
Lots of speculation up in the air following Lummis' surprise announcement that she's giving it up after a single term as Senator, including why she's doing that.
Included in speculative candidates are, as already noted, Gray, Hageman and Gordon. Degenfelder has also been mentioned, whom I didn't think of. Degenfelder would have a good chance against any of these three, although I'd prefer Gordon.
Reid Rasner has been mentioned , and I'd guess that he will run. . . and lose in the primary.
Matt Mead has been mentioned as well.
Of course, this shuffling will also bring out the hard right "I worked for the government my entire life but now that I'm retired and on a Federal pension let me run from the far right" candidates. Brent Bien is running for Governor now, but he might take a run at this as it seems Barlow is in such good shape.
With oil declining, the weather being rather weird, and a large percentage of Wyomingites about to lose their healthcare, this election will also present opportunities for moderate Republicans we haven't thought of yet, as well as with conservative Democrats, if any can be found. I don't think that Karlee Provenza will want to give up her seat in the state legislature, but if Hageman runs for the Senate, which I think she will, and Chuck Gray for the House, which I think he will, Provenza would be an interesting dark horse candidate who might win against Chuck. Indeed, it's not impossible to imagine Gordon and Provenza in, which would move Wyoming's Congressional delegation overall to the center, as Barrasso will do what he needs to do to keep his job, assuming he'll run again.
An interesting thing to note is that it's quite clear that Liz Cheney was going to run for Enzi's Senate seat when he died, but Lummis took her spot It seemed pretty clear that there was animosity between the two because of that. In spite of all the MAGA hatred of Cheney now, she was a very popular Congressman up until she failed to bow to Trump and took him on. Had she won that seat, she'd still be in the Senate today.
The spectacular fall of Elise Stefanik is quite notable, and should serve as a warning to the flag of convenience politicians. Stefanik hitched her wagon to Trump and failed to get what she wanted. Now she's dropping out of politics, for awhile.
Stefanik made an incredibly bad set of calculations and more or less sold her soul, Marco Rubio style, for power, except she lost power, rather than gain it. She'll reemerge, I'm pretty sure, after Trump is out of office, banking on Americans having short political memory. My prediction on her is that she, like Rubio, will declare they never really loved Trump.
Cont:
And we are in fact off. There are two filed candidates.
One is the predictable Reid Rasner. Rasner took a pounding in the last election trying to run to the right of John Barrasso, and he'll go down in flames again here.
The other is Jimmy Skovgard. I checked his website and have no idea what he stands for. He has a blog, with poor production values, and perhaps if I'd waded through all of it I'd know more, but I didn't.
