According to the economist who came up with it, the “Walmart Recession Signal” indicating an oncoming recession is getting louder.
Tonight, I'm also pleased to announce that the Department of Agriculture will be launching a new harvest fuel relief program, providing our farmers with $8 billion in support to offset diesel costs during this harvest season
Donald Trump.
So the fuel relief is to relieve high fuel prices caused by the war against Iran which is illegal, and will be paid for by money we don't have.
Sure, that makes sense somehow.
Oil is coming out of the Strait of Hormuz, under US protection, at roughly the same amount it was before the war now.
In a real irony, former House District 58 representative Patrick Sweeney went to the Midwest town hall on the subject. Long serving Sweeney was ousted by current representative Bill Allemand after the district was redrawn. Alleman was a complete asshole to Sweeney in a debate and ran, that time, as firebrand Freedom Caucuser.
He survived a challenge from Bar Nunn Mayor Peter Boyer whom he became crosswise with over a proposal to place the Radiant nuclear generator plant north of Bar Nunn, something Bar Nunn could not have stopped. Bar Nunn's city council meetings became the bizarre focus of the topic however with outraged populists even accusing some city council members of taking bribes, an absolute absurdity. Radiant eventually grew tired of the matter and decamped to Tennessee. Allemand, for his part, was arrested not all that long after for drunk driving. He's one of the few surviving members of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, barely hanging on to his seat.
Allemand is apparently backing fanciful thoughts of declaring the school to be a charter school or forming a new school district, neither of which will occur It was really admirable of Sweeney to go out and speak to a group of people about their plight, which is concerning, which their votes for Allemand helped bring about. It's the classic Leopard's won't eat my face situation.
Could Data Centers Save Wyoming Coal? Peabody Eyes 'Holy Grail' Strategy
October 26, 2026
Wyoming will receive $206,000,000 from the Federal Government for healthcare as part of a Federal rural healthcare initiative.
Now, I demand everyone in Wyoming on the far right who has decried socialized medicine to demand the state not accept the money. To not do so would be hypocritical.
This is a good example of why: 1) nobody should be allowed to amass this degree of wealth, 2) people who don't make their livelihood in agriculture should not be allowed to own ag land.
This is a really good reason to bring in a wealth tax in Wyoming, and an idle rich landowner tax.
Having not really completed anything meaningful with Venezuela, other than having tasted blood and developing fondness for it, and having gotten us into an endless war with Iran we're losing, King Donny the Mad is about to launch a war against Cuba, starting with a claim that Raul Castro, age 94, must be brought to justice over a US civilian aircraft that was shot down by the Cubans in 1996.
Oh horse poop.
Some in Demented Donnie's administration have been drooling over a chance to attack Cuba since the easily manipulated narcissist illegitimately moved back into the Oval Office. Military action against Cuba has been a desire of displaced Cubans and their descendants in the US since 1959. If the US attacked the island and removed the government, Lil' Marco would claim it as a victory attributable to him, one way or another, in the 2028 Presidential campaign he's clearly running in.
That's part of the problem. Influential "Republicans" (there are no real Republicans left anymore) like Marco and the Robot Ted Cruz would do anything for a Cuba Libre other than actually live in Cuba.
Of course, with this administrations lust for territorial acquisition, as desire expressed by some imperialist Republicans going into the Spanish American War, the annexation of Cuba with the goal of making it a state, would be the more likely goal in the short term. If Trump, or Marco, pulled that off, the irony would be that it would be solidly Democratic and admitting Puerto Rico as a state would happen immediately thereafter.
Probably the only thing that's really been holding this up has been the commitment of forces to Iran, where Iran is deploying Muhammed Ali's old "rope a dope" strategy and refusing to surrender even though King Donny assures us he won and the war is over. Actually defeating Iran will require a ground invasion that even Donny, who can choke down killing schoolgirls, can't seem to muster up the will for and which the American public doesn't want. The war itself has already achieved a level of unpopularity matched by that of the Vietnam War after Tet.
But, the thought is, this will go better. . . or at least Cuban Americans will like the result.
The threats against Castro started a couple of days ago. Within the last twenty four hours China, which Trump went to and acted like a orphaned puppy, has warned the US to knock it off.
May 22, 2026
The future of Cuba belongs to the people of Cuba is terms of how they're governed, what the system looks like and so forth, but the national security threat, that's 100% something we're going to focus on because that's about America.
Marco Rubio.
What crap.
Cuba has been a Communist country since 1959 when Fidel Castro overthrow the authoritarian government there (it wasn't obvious he was Communist at first).
They have not attacked us since then.
We have, however, effectively attacked them, landing Cuban contras there in 1961.
Rubio knows this, however. His parents were immigrants from Cuba who came over before the 1959 revolution, and who actually planned on returning to the country before the Communist nature of the revolution became apparent.
And that's part of the problem here. Cuban Americans are never going back to Cuba, but they imagine Cuba Libre with the same zeal as Irish Americans imagined a Republican Ireland. In the latter case, that unthinking zeal helped contribute to decades of strife in Ireland, and here it's contributed to decades of misery in Cuba.
Efforts to force a political change in Cuba should have ceased in 1961 when John F. Kennedy withdrew air support for the Cuban contras. There was no good reason at all other than anger not to normalize economic relations with Cuba at least by the early 1980s. That's what we should do now.
Ho Chi Minh wouldn't recognize Communism in Vietnam today and, if transported from wherever his soul went to, he's be convinced that South Vietnam had won the war and reformed itself. If we weren't keeping Cuba on the trophy shelf of failures, the same would be true for Cuba.
But we live in a dangerous age. Donald Trump is desperately searching for something for Americans to remember him by (and we certainly have plenty to recall right now). Marco Rubio has the misplaced child of immigrants probable loyalty to an imaginary paradise or imaginary would be paradise.
We're cruising right back into Havana's harbor where every American military adventure to date has been a disaster.
Donald Trump, and perhaps more significantly Marco Rubio, are threatening Cuba again.
Trump is threatening, again, to invade the country, on the Navy's way back from Iran. The Navy would not appear to be coming back from the Persian Gulf anytime soon, really.
Rubio, however, specifically called for Cubans to align themselves with CIA operatives.
You will hear of wars and rumors of wars, but see to it that you are not alarmed. Such things must happen, but the end is still to come. Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom
Matthew, Chapter 24.
I never cut my neighbor's throat;
My neighbor's gold I never stole;
I never spoiled his house and land;
But God have mercy on my soul!
For I am haunted night and day
By all the deeds I have not done;
O unattempted loveliness!
O costly valor never won!
Marguerite Wilkinson
October 19, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
Victim of Russian missile strike:
Impeach Donald Trump and allow him, and Putin, to be tried for crimes against humanity. Putin, Ukraine. Trump, selling his sold for diesel to Russia, killing people extrajudicially off of South America and launching an illegal war against Iran.
Mark you, John Barrasso, Cynthia Lummis, Chuck Gray. By not taking action, you are taking action.
Signature of Elon Musk who is being credited with shutting down space based intelligence with Ukraine. I have my doubts. Musk may just be serving as a scapegoat. At any rate, the evet demonstrates why no man should have that much economic power.
Finger pointing is going on regarding the question on who slowed down Starshield, which impacted Ukrainian air operations this past week.
Perhaps the important portion of this story is that the US has resumed sharing intelligence with Ukraine. But who stopped it in the first place? That's not clear. President Trump denied responsibility, which would mean that if the order came from the government an underling did it and the report did not get up to the Oval Office, or that Trump is lying, or that he didn't remember what had been discussed.
Elon Musk briefly took responsibility and then clammed up about it. His doing that seems to have satisfied many but it also requires explanation. I'm not wholly convinced that story is true.
Assuming that it is wholly or partially true, that raises its own question. Starshield didn't exist all that long ago but now it's critical. If a single private person can shut it off, that person has too much power, even if its power over his own company's creation.
And now the impact of its disruption is clearly demonstrated. If we end up fighting Russia, and when we end up fighting China, the latter of which will be very soon, it'll be wiped out right at the onset of the war.
Signature of Donald Trump, here standing alone rather than over the genitals of a doodled female figure in an Epstein birthday card where you might have previously seen it.
October 24, 2026
Russo Ukrainian War
Melania Trump is being credited with securing a ceasefire between Russia and Ukraine forces in Oleshky, which will begin on October 29, to allow for humanitarian relief to the small number of people trapped there.
We are, of course, about one month away from the General Election and it's universally agreed that, at least as of right now, the economy is not doing well, which is to say that it's not doing well for average people. Having said that, all the monkeying around Trump has done with the economy has not resulted in a general collapse, as some feared. This tends to give credence to the assertion that some make that the American economy in general is so strong that it tends to keep on chugging along in spite of everything.
Having said that, prices on many things have gone up, and are now at the paint point for average people. Beef prices, for example, are up about 25%. That can't really be blamed on Trump, as its due to a historically low cattle heard, but Trump's efforts to address it were pretty much non existent at first, and the ineffectual when they were tried.
Addressing the price can only really come through a recovery of the North American herd. Trump's constant crazy hatred of Canada and Canadians isn't helping this at all, as Canada is part of the North American market. Mexican cattle, which had been banned from coming into the US due to screwworm, which we're not hearing much about, which is concerning, have started to come back in. That is likely to have some effect.
Petroleum prices have shot up enormously since Trump started an ill advised and poorly planned war on Iran for no real discernable critical objective.
Wars are inflationary by their very nature, but attacking a critical global petroleum supplier is definitely going to be inflationary, and this is set to really start hitting home. Everything in the US, whether it moves by truck, by rail, or in the air, uses petroleum. That impacts the price of 100% of American goods. Gasoline, Diesel fuel and Aviation fuel is way up in price. Heating oil is up 50% to 70% just as we're entering the season where it starts to be used on the East Coast. NOAA, which usus science, predicts a warm winter in the East, like last years, so that might not be as impactful as it could be. The Old Farmers Almanac, which I put no stock in whatsoever, predicts a cold winter.
An interesting side impact of the cost of things is that even Wyomingites are looking at electric vehicles. I overheard a conversation the other day in which two people were wishing to get them, and they're both highly conservative individuals. A report on increasing EVs appeared in one of the local online journals today.
There are still a lot of naysayers out there, but there were when automobiles started to become common for that matter.
Anyway, the Trump Administration has handed out its flood of excuses for all of this, starting at first with "it's Joe Biden's fault". Everything is Biden's fault according to Trump, whom while he routinely falls asleep in public still calls Biden, on occasion, "Sleep Joe".
The it's all Biden's fault is no longer selling very well so the "it's not much to pay to keep Iran from getting a bomb" has been tried and is still being tried, but it's not selling that well . First of all, well informed people know that while Iran is a very secretive state, the evidence that it was about to make a nuke is thin. And frankly Israel's major early role in the war made it pretty clear that this was a joint Israeli American adventure in which the Trumpites had been heavily influenced by Israel. That's adding to an anti Israeli sentiment that's been building in the US for several years and you'll even now hear, in response to the suggestion that it's all worth it to keep Iran from getting a bomb, that maybe we don't really care if Iran has a bomb.
We didn't care enough about North Korea having one in order for the US to attack it, and Trump loves the communist leader of North Korea.
So that excuse isn't working either.
So time to distract.
The government just announced that children under 16 years of age are being automatically enrolled in "Trump" savings accounts. The Government, which has no money whatsoever as it's borrowing piles, will place $1,000 of the money it doesn't have into such accounts, but parents need to claim it.
Will this achieve something?
Well, it might, or might now. Truth be known with inflation being what it is, $1,000 that can't be touched until a person is 18 years old isn't going to seem like that big of a deal right now But it might turn out to be.
Trump also promised people $5,000 if the GOP retains both houses of Congress, but then that would require Congress to do it, and Trump earlier promised everyone a $2,000 tariff dividend. The government handing out cash it doesn't have isn't a good idea and frankly I thought it was a horrible idea when President Biden started handing out cash during COVID. I've heard the Trump proposal compared to that, and that was a bad idea.
The Administration also just sent out $500.00 checks as supposed refunds for Obamacare overcharges. They seem rather strategically placed, however.
Anyhow, stayed tuned for coming attractions. The trade war with Canada is just starting, the war is no where near over, and prices are really set to climb. Trump has less than thirty days to address all of this, or even some of it, which won't be easy at all. Voters who are inclined to vote their pocketbooks are likely pretty much set in their opinions by now.
Grant Street Grocery in Casper Wyoming is the only surviving small neighborhood grocery store in the town and even advertises the same.
Opened in 1921, the store was converted into a specialty grocery store and deli some years ago, and features meats and cheeses, as well as many other items, that are unlikely to appear on the counters of regular grocery stores. It's featured here for its simple sign, as well as being a remnant of something that was once very common, a neighborhood store.
President Trump signed an order allowing for the temporary sale of red diesel, which you tend to only find easily in farm country, for regular diesels. Effectively its a sort of kind of temporary suspension of the Federal tax on diesel.
I'd quite frankly question the Presidents ability to legally do this, but if I see red diesel for sale, I'm buying it.
2026-009Emergency Relief Permits for Transportation of Oversize and Overweight Loads of Agricultural Products
2026-010Executive Order Recognizing and Adopting the Federal Monitor Carrier Safety Administration Hours-of-Service Waiver for the Intrastate Transportation of Gasoline and Diesel Fu
On the red fuel order, some states, or at least Montana, have warned diesel users that they're not lifting their provisions. Also, red diesel stains filters and engine parts, so when the suspension ends, and you take your truck in to be serviced, you may have a lot of explaining to do.
And now this:
Trump is so desperate to put the economic destruction of the Iran War behind him that he's made a deal with Putin to import diesel fuel.
First of all, this isn't enough diesel to make any sort of difference and I frankly do not think it will even occur. But more significantly he's made a deal with a country that is engaged in a completely immoral war against a neighbor and losing, and by doing this, helping them. The US, it might be noted, has just acted to increase sanctions on Russia.
Totally inexcusable.
October 14, 2026
Inflation jumped in September.
Now, it's not Trump's fault. It's Joe Biden's. He set the inflation meter on 10 and then hid the key with the Epstein files, so you can see the problem.
It's not like an illegal war we're losing or tariffs had anything to do with that.
Governor Gordon and Cynthia Lummis came out against the Trump Russian diesel plan. Barrasso, who is now a toady, predictably supported it. Hageman when asked about it cited regulations in the US as the problem, which is absolutely and completely absurd. She'd earlier voted against aid to Ukraine and has been in the Trump camp consistently.
By the way, the price per barrel for crude oil has gone up, as have the price of diesel futures, since Trump announced his "deal" with the Russians.
