Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Friday, May 15, 2026
Tuesday, May 12, 2026
Friday, May 12, 1911. On to Mexico City.
Madero was declaring that if Diaz did not step down, his forces would march on Mexico City.
Pancho Villa and Pascual Orozco, accompanied by about 150 soldiers, came to speak to Francisco Madero to demand Gen. Navarro's execution.
A Protestant pastor, the same issue of the Casper noted, apparently didn't really understand the nature of the Sacrament of Confession.
Last edition:
Thursday, May 11, 1911. Madero creates a provisional cabinet.
Sunday, May 10, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 135th Edition. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus
I've been saying for awhile, and statements like this really demonstrate it:
It looks like President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches than the Pope.
Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas on Fox News.
That comment was stupid. But then, he's called Catholicism a cult.
The Catholic Church is an Apostolic Church. It was founded by Christ. John Smyth, an Englishman, founded the Baptists in 1609.
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is a Catholic doctrine. There is no salvation outside the Church. None the less, the Church holds that those who did not come to Christ innocently, or those who did not come to the Church innocently, can be saved, which operates again through the Church. You can't be held responsible for what you innocently didn't know.
But what about here?
We're in the death throws of the reformation. Things Smyth could get away with believing in 1609 there's no excuse to believe now, other than invincible ignorance.
Being a pastor of a 14,000 member church puts a pretty heavy burden on you and your soul for remaining ignorant.
Smyth is also a Fox News contributor, which really figures.
As an irony here, although one he will not be capable, right now, of appreciating, Smyth has gone after Mormons, Jews, and Muslims as well. In normal times, he would not have a national television audience. He would have a local Dallas one as Texas is part of the former Confederacy and the Baptist rose in the wake of the Southern defeat in 1865, replacing the Episcopal Church in the South as the dominant religion culturally. Nationally, however, picking on Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Mormons would get you booted off of television.
Religious aspects of this aside, this brings up a political one I've warned about here repeatedly.
Catholics voting for MAGA candidates are voting for a group that not only doesn't regard the Church highly, they don't believe it's a Christian religion at all. People like Lyin' Chuck Gray, Reid Rasner and Megan Degenfelder, who are Catholics who run as MAGA are making a political bargain that will cause them, as it seems to have already for Lyin' Chuck to decide between their faiths, and their political fortunes. Degenfelder has signs up all over which say "Endorsed by President Trump".
They should say "Endorsed by Blasphemous Donald Trump".
And this isn't merely esoteric. We're in the same position now that Catholic Germans were in the 1932 German election (and the Catholics in fact went for Hitler much less than German protestants did). There's really going to be no good "um, well, the other guy . . . " excuse here. The far right Evangelical edge of the Trump coalition isn't even pretending not to hate Catholics much anymore.
And what about Mormons?
Mormons include a heavy MAGA contingent, although the only really devout Mormons I know here locally right now are heavy duty Never Trumpers, and openly so. But then you have guys like Deseret Mike Lee who come pretty close to viewing Trump positively in some sort of creepy religious terms. Deep in the Jello Belt it's always been the case that there was a sort of ignorant conservatism in some quarters, and in the last 16 years, in spite of guys like Mitt Romney, it's really come out.
Trump and Islam is simply laughable as a joke. In the last election Trump drew a fair amount of Islamic support because Muslims were so mad about Joe Biden's support of Israel. Well, they got what the should have expected. The only person Trump loves more than Putin (and of course Trump) is Benjamin Netanyahu and as a result we've supported genocide in Gaza, a war in Lebanon and we helped Israel attack Iran and we can't get out of it. I suspect that most Muslims are voting for the Democrats next go around, just like most Hispanics will be (and in both instances, this really gives the Democrats a chance to evolve away from their sea of blood positions).
And this sort of thing should even be a revelation for Jews of all stripes, although I think they're more awake to what MAGA is than most. The strong Trump support for Netanyahu comes in part because Netanyahu is good at playing Trump, much like Putin is. But it also comes from people like Hegseth or Huckabee, who have a radical Protestant view of Israel and want to bring about the Second Coming of Christ basically by force, which they see current events as an opportunity in which to do so. Put another way, do you really want to get in the car with somebody who wants to drive you to a giant gun fight?
Donald Trump, of course, is sort of beyond all of this. Trump isn't any sort of serious Christian and we don't really know if he has any religious beliefs at all. Most of his life has been spent chasing cash through real estate development and his hobbies have been golf and chasing tail. Christians are just a convenient vehicle for him. If the Sultan of Oman offered him a bigger better airplane tomorrow if he'd convert to Islam, and remind him that Muslims can have more than one wife, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he signed on. His personal conduct actually squares better with Islam than Christianity, which is after all a religion focused on the poor and duty.
In the end, all of this is going to fall apart.
Christians who aligned with Trump, just like Muslims and Mormons who did, are going to have to pay the cost. It'll be different for each. For Muslims, well their fellows are playing through blood right now. Jews will pay by the backlash that's already started.
For Christians, it'll be different, depending upon where their allegiance lay. For the ignorant members of the American Civil Religion, and for the hardcore Evangelical right, this will be the beginning of an end of an era that started in April 1865, when the South fell and the Evangelical far right stepped into its own. For the Protestant world in general, this will accelerate the death of the Reformation.
For the Catholic and Orthodox Christians who supported Trump, how could you be so blind?
Nonetheless, this will be a good thing for the Catholic and Orthodox. A delusion that started in 1960 that you could be fully American and fully Catholic, or Orthodox, has ended. National Conservatism will end with it.
And that will be a good thing.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 134th Edition. Paying the cost of failed Reconstruction.
Thursday, May 7, 2026
Friday, May 7, 1976. Jacelyne Khoueiry at Martyrs' Square.
Maronite Catholic Jacelyne Khoueiry and six other Lebanese Christian women defended a building in Martyrs' Square in Beirut from an attack by 300 Palestine Liberation Organization fighter.
Khouneiry would go on to command a female Christian unit of 1,500 members before laying down her arms in 1986. She'd go on to found charitable and prolife organizations and participated in a 2012 synod on the Middle East and the 2014 Third Extraordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. She was appointed to the Pontifical Council for the Laity.
Last edition:
Friday, April 30, 1976. The end of the Greek Language Question.
Labels: 1970s, 1976, 2000s, 2006, boxing, Cod Wars, fishing, Greece, Greek, Health, Iceland, Icelandic Coast Guard, languages, Mental Health, Third Cod War
Tuesday, May 7, 1901. Gary Cooper born.
Gary Cooper was born in Helena, Montana. His English born father was a lawyer, rancher, and would become a Montana Supreme Court justice.
Cooper was well educated, and his early education was in the United Kingdom. He was a member of the Church of England growing up but converted to Catholicism, having been introduced to it by his daughter and then estranged wife, two years prior to his death. He died in 1961.
Allis-Chalmers was incorporated.
German troops defeated Chinese cavalry in a battle at Kalgan (now Zhangjiakou) in the Hebei Province of China.
Last edition:
Monday, May 6, 1901. 15,000 dead.
Sunday, May 7, 1876. First Black Hills sermon, maybe.
Supposedly the first Christian sermon in the Black Hills was preached at Custer City, South Dakota by Methodist layman Henry Weston Smith.
He would be murdered that following August.
While this was notable, I'm frankly really skeptical that this was the "first". American histories of the settlement of the West tend to pretend that when European Americans first shows up they were the first people of European ancestry to show up, which is very far from true. The Corps of Discovery, for instance, merely re-trod ground that the French Canadians had been hiking for years. Catholic missionaries had been in the region, moreover, for decades by this point.
Last edition:
Wednesday, May 3, 1876. The Emperor of Brazil travels into Wyoming.
Monday, April 27, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 130th Edition. Narratives
The things they've said.
The attempted assassination at the White House Correspondence Dinner has spawned some interesting events and narratives.
One thing is that apparently Trump called several prominent reporters who were at the event that night, and expressed concern for their well being. That's outright remarkable given his generally abusive self centered public persona.
He also made a statement about needing to come together.
That's true, but at least one politician interviewed about it had a very difficult time not expressing skepticism.
Already, I'd note, Trump fans have yelled out about how Democratic and left wing rhetoric cased this. Well, bull.
There is a lot of hostile verbiage directed at Trump, and much of it is due to the horrible things he says all the time. Just a few weeks ago he noted how he was glad a public figure was dead.
Trump brought American political rhetoric into new territory when he very first started to run for the Oval Office. Republicans who complain about the language directed at him, and some of it is vile, need to look in the mirror.
Ballroom fixation
Amongst comments made by Trump were those stating this is proof we need his expensive ballroom, which is tied up in litigation.
The logic of that would be that the ballroom, if built, will have expensive security features. Where it fails in logic is that the dinner event was a private one, not a state function. Unless everything a President accepts an invitation to is held in the ballroom, things like this would not be prevented.
But here's another, and frankly radical, thing to consider.
Maybe Presidents need less protection, not more.
At one time there was a tradition that members of the public could wait in line at the White House to shake the President's hand on New Years. That ended in 1932. Now it would be unthinkable.
The only thing that's changed since 1932 is us. If the President's under constant threat, and of course there were three Presidents that were assassinated prior to 1932, that's because of us or some other factor.
One thing that's clearly changed is that the President is treated much more like a king now than he was in '32. Air Force One is the very symbol of that.
These trappings ought to be stripped away. If a President needs to fly somewhere, on official business, the Air Force has airplanes. There doesn't need to be a designated special one. Nor does there need to be a Marine Corps helicopter dedicated for the President. If he's just flying to a resort to golf, he can by a commercial airline ticket.
Maybe part of the overall problem is that they're given too much and separated from the people they are supposed to serve.
A big dumb ballroom emphasizes that.
It actually is true that prior Presidents lamented their being a lack of entertainment space. Well, too darned bad. Rent a hotel room.
And I'm not in favor of a giant bunker on the White House grounds either.
Maybe if a person is more like everyone else, they'll think twice about things that harm people. I don't want them exposed to violence, but making things so they can inflict it video game style is not a good thing, and elevating the President above the people isn't either.
And now you know. . .
how thousands of other people live every day. With one exception, when I listed to interviews of people from the press who had been at the event, things were not too surprisingly focused on themselves. The one exception was somebody who pointed out that they had excellent security but that most people don't, and that a lot of people live in fear of their family members, including children, being killed every day.
That's an excellent point.
Trump said something about this being just part of the price of holding office, which is easy to say for somebody who has a taxpayer funded security team. It shouldn't be part of the price of holding office, and exposure to violent death shouldn't be something you have to endure just because you live in this country.
Anti Christian?
When I went to Mass yesterday there was a Sheriff's truck parked in front of the Church. That's not a parking spot. When I went in, there was a uniformed sheriff's officer in complete kit. That's unusual.
I wondered if something was going on. Maybe not. He went to Communion like everyone else, so maybe he was just on his way to work.
Trump claimed that the shooter had been a Christian than apostatized and that was part of his motivation. We'll see. If so, it's ironic, as there's no visible evidence of Trump taking Christianity seriously.
What our enemies must be thinking.
It's been long believed that Iran has sleeper cells in the US. If they do, they haven't activated them in the current war. They either don't really have them, or they're holding back as it provides them with an advantage.
I can see where the latter might be the case. The old joke, dating back to World War Two, was that Hitler was the best general the Allies had, and that same may apply to Trump. He might be the best general the Iranians had.
That we went into the war with Iran with no clue what we were doing, and what our enemy was actually like, is to plain to excuse away. We have no idea whatsoever what we're doing and have no way out of the war. It's going to wreck the global economy. At this point, and we're at the sixty day mark, Trump legally has to submit the question of continuing the war to Congress, which will have to determine, as a practical matter, if we're going to engage in a full scale ground invasion of the country or surrender and leave Iran stronger than it was.
The Iranians maybe gambling on the latter, and it'd probably be a good gamble.
Anyhow, assuming they have sleeper cells, they've really shown restraint. Yesterday proved that a dedicated group of men could have breached security and completely decapitated the American government. We participated in doing that, which is beyond the Pale in war normally, in this war. On the basis of turnabout is fair play, it's amazing they haven't tried it. Maybe they just didn't think it'd work.
They know now it would have, although presumably the administration won't be dumb enough again to put the complete administration together in one room.
The others who must be looking are Russia and China, China in particular. But not at that, but at the war itself.
We've pretty much burned through our war reserve of missiles. If war came with China, we couldn't fight it.
Tone Deaf
Once a week now we get identical sized flyers from Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner promising to support the demented octogenarian that put us a war that's going to completely wreck the economy, and whose wrecking a lot of other things.
Maybe that still works in Wyoming. Trump has a lot of fans here. But as prices get higher and higher, and we sluff into a summer that's going to be hot and dry, with a tourist industry that's going to fall flat on its face, I wonder.
For the first time, actually, I got a sort of nervous "what do you make of the assassination" from somebody whose a huge Trump supporter and knows I'm not. I think he was looking for reassurance of some sort. I gave analysis. That probably isn't what he was looking for.
Proof of Devine Providence?
Franklin Graham was quick to come out with what I was sure would occur. Trump's survived three assassination attempts and that is, he suggested, proof that God wants him in power.
Adolf Hitler survived over 40 assassination attempts. There are five known plots on Stalin's life.
A person should never dismiss something being the Hand of God, but we shouldn't presume to know the mind of God either. Nor should we ignore, as the examples above show, the Problem of Evil.
On that, we can presume that God allows an evil to occur, but does not cause it, in order to bring a greater good out of it. While foreseeing the future is always risking, I could see that being the case here.
In spite of what Trump/Gray/Hageman/Barrasso/Rasner and others believe, or claim to believe, the ongoing use of fossil fuels is harming the world. This may actually accelerate their end.
Let me restate that, it is accelerating their end.
Countries all around the globe, including China, are rapidly phasing out fossil fuels for power generation. China is leaping into electric vehicles big time. Europe has, I believe, 2030 as the date for the end of the import of Russian oil.
The war is freeing the globe of US influence, something we'll regret and with it our steadfast refusal to look at reality. We're being put in our place, and the era of fossil fuels is coming to a rapid end.
The other thing, it seems to me, that Trump is brining about is the discrediting of American Evangelicalism. I.e., people like Graham.
Evangelical churches are particularly an American thing. They're strong in the US in a way they aren't anywhere else. Where they evangelize outside the US its nearly always where Catholics have made it safe for them to go. The latching on to Trump by them in a very public manner is hurting Christianity in general, but them in particular. Catholicism is already growing world wide and, while the story is only now being noticed, it's growing in the US. I suspect Trump is accidentally helping bring hte latter about.
On firearms.
On assassinations, one thing worth noting, although I won't detail it, is that so far the only assassin/would be assassin who seems to have had a clue what he was doing was the guy who shot Charlie Kirk, although even there it's clear that the shot being lethal was essentially accidental. There's very free access to firearms in the US, although I suspect that this will start being curbed back due to Trump, but that free access doesn't mean competence.
People who are really familiar with firearms are unlikely to go out and try to kill somebody. This is true of "military style" firearms. There's a group of firearms aficionados who like military style firearms, but aren't very likely to use them in any lethal fashion.
This may simply be because people know and like firearms know what they'll do, and are unlikely to be people who use them in that fashion. It's the people who buy them just because they're worked up about politics, on the right or the left, or who have an exaggerated fear of being attacked, who are the problem here. Fortunately, they're not all that likely to actually know how to use them.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 129th Edition. An unfortunate observation of our times.
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 129th Edition. An unfortunate observation of our times.
Lex Anteinternet: CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 128th Edition. Attem...: The 127th edition of this was teed up to go before last night's White House Correspondence Dinner, or this would be that edition. Havin...
I tend to over empathetic.
That might be an easy thing to claim, but it's true. I'm often tortured in litigation by how little Plaintiff's lawyers care about their clients. Indeed, I think it's a hallmark of being a Plaintiff's lawyer, which I'm not, to not really give a rat's ass about them. Most of them are callous to it. I'm also tortured, however, by the extent to which litigation is regarded as a mere business transaction while it wrecks the lives an livelihoods of real people.
I'm bothered by the personal plights of people I don't know. In movies with sad situations I'll find myself tearing up. The killing of the Iranian schoolgirls in the current war bothers me so much that I couldn't tell my wife about it without starting to tear up and saying "think about their poor parents". I can hardly stand to think about it now and it fills me with rage that we killed them, even if it was a targeting accident. We have excuses, but we have no sympathy.
I note all of this as I'm bothered today by the extent to which the horrible human being and his acolytes in the White House have actually made me so fatigued that I'm having a hard time caring about what occurred at the Press Dinner.
Intellectually, I know it was awful. I don't support killing people. I'm opposed to abortion. I'm opposed to the death penalty. I'm opposed to wars save in the case of absolute need, a part of which his self defense. I'm realistic enough to know that people can take the lives of others in self defense, but murder of a person is never justified.
But day after day of Trump's assault on human dignity has worn me down so much that I'm not empathetic about yesterdays events. I know that they were wrong, but it's just an intellectual acknowledgement of it.
Sooner or later, most likely sooner given his advanced age, Donald Trump is going to pass on and go to his reward. He's publicly wondered if he's damned. As a Catholic, I hold to the belief that we should hope and pray for his salvation and that we do not know who is amongst the damned. Hans Von Baltazar posed the question if we might dare to hope that all men are saved, and while we might dare to hope it, I very much doubt that is the case. Still, we have no idea who is amongst the damned and who is amongst the saved, but just by objective Christian criteria, there's not a single member of Trump's administration that I hear about often whom I would not regard as having their souls in jeopardy.
I hate fact that Trump is so vile that he's made it so that I'm having a hard time being empathetic about a horrible event. If Trump was to choke on a Big Mac today I'd say a prayer for his salvation, but it wouldn't be one of those things were I consciously morn a death, as I usually do. I'm not wishing for his death, but I'm so burnt out about all things Trump I'd say a prayer for the dead and then probably move on to other things.
Trump has made many things that way. He's done such violence to our society and its norms that its reached the state where it's almost impossible to care about them. At this point, if the next President had to tear out the Reflecting Pool, I wouldn't care.
When Trump is gone the nation is going to have a monumental time repairing itself. I guess we have the example of the post Civil War era, in which the country manage to come back together in spite of actually fighting itself. How it managed that isn't really clear. It seems like it just decided it would.
Here's to hoping that the Better Angels of Our Mercy might return.
Last edition:
Labels: 2020s, 2025 White House Vandalization, 2026, Conspiracy Theories, Donald Trump, Men, Military, News, Secret Service, The Press, The roles of men and women, Weapons, Women, Zeitgeist
Sunday, April 26, 2026
Friday, April 24, 2026
Report: Trump Administration Is Spying on Pope Leo XIV’s Vatican.
If this is correct, it should be the last possible line in the sand for American Catholics. For those for whom it isn't, there's clearly no outrage that Trump could do that would matter to them.
Report: Trump Administration Is Spying on Pope Leo XIV’s Vatican
An independent journalist with a record of leaked-FBI scoops has documented that the Vatican is being targeted by US intelligence services.
Wednesday, April 22, 2026
The 2026 Election, 7th Edition, Do not stand with those who promote the sins that cry out to Heaven.
April 14, 2026.
The Donald Trump Effect, voters running from candidates endorsed by the deranged octogenarian whose administration is protecting the rapist of teenagers, starting wars, and causing rising inflation, is having a noticeable nationwide, and even international, effect. Voters in special elections all over the US are dumping MAGA candidates and electing Democrats. It's an absolute certainty at this point that, unless something dramatic happens, that the Republicans are going to lose badly at the midterms and retake the House. And now it appears they're likely to take the Senate. The Cook Political Report shifted four Senate races this past week to favor Democratic and pundits are now openly saying the Democrats will take the upper house.
Of course, Democrats have a way of shooting themselves in the foot. Nonetheless the momentum is clear. Trump has lost independents, who he needs in most places for the GOP to remain in office, and he's lost Hispanics. This past week his actions were such that if he has not lost non Hispanic Catholics, its only because those voters value Trump more than the Faith or are engaging in some really self delusional thinking, keeping in mind that you never actually have to vote Democratic and that in the primaries there is usually a Republican willing to run who isn't a slave to Trump.
California Republicans refused to endorse a Governor's candidate in a convention that was just held and snubbed Trump's endorsement of one. They see the handwriting on the wall.
But still you have this.
An entire group of Wyoming candidates acts like this adoring girl. Shoot, they'd like to be squeezed by Trump too.
An article on the topic:
Donald Trump and Wyoming’s crowded House race
This all follows, of course, this:
The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and Special edition. Attacking the Catholic Church.
If Wyomingites are going to wake up, and that's unlikely, there's be a point, if we are not already at it, where voting for the GOP candidates who associate with themselves with Trump would be a no go. And some of those candidates would already be no gos.
Chuck Gray, who barely won the Secretary of State's office and only did so by lies and screeds about an imaginary pack of left wingers always oppressing him is running on being perpetually pissed off at at the left and being in deep love with Donald Trump. Reid Rasner promises to be Trump's number one fan. Megan Degenfelder has "Endorsed by Donald Trump" on her campaign signs.
All three are Catholic. If they can still stomach Trump at this point, there's literally no value they hold that they actually hold. No Democrat is going to win, so lashing themselves to Trump is either cynical or self delusional. It's inexcusable.
Degenfelder's signs out to read "Endorsed by Blasphemer Donald Trump". Gray and Rasner, who are both young enough, ought to joint the Marines and put their bodies where their mouths are.
Another far right Catholic figure in Wyoming is Rachel Rodriguez-Williams, who is now running for Secretary of State as Rachel Williams. She's never said anything about Trump of which I'm aware, but as a Freedom Caucuser she ought to fell uncomfortable with the company she's been keeping.
It'll also be interesting to see how columnists like Jonathan Lange, a Lutheran minister, approaches what is now too obvious to ignore. . . Trump doesn't care about religion at all and feels free to outright mock it. Granted, he's not Catholic, but for sincere Christians what was depicted is blasphemous irrespective of which branch of Christianity a person might be in.
And then we have this:
There's no excuse for what Gray did.
Even some Republican states are opposing giving voter data to the Federal Government, but Chuck was the first to comply.
We'll see how this plays out, but if he loses, given his position, he ought to get the maximum penalty.
Anyhow, we're in the thick of the election now, but every day, Donald Trump gets weirder and weirder. He's insane. Standing by the insanity is not excusable.
April 15, 2026
Three Rematches Set, So Far, In Wyoming's House Races
Here's an absolute shock:
This may be showing that the bloom is actually off the Trump rose. Generally, Wyoming Republicans have been complete Trump toady's.
The five are Kevin Christensen, who called the post blasphemous, Matt McGinnis, and John Romero-Martinez. Romero-Martinez, who is a devout Catholic, added that it was not only blasphemous, but sacrilegious.
Kinney the Democratic candidate and Johnson the Libertarian also criticized the act, but less forcefully.
Johnson made the excellent point that this is one of a string of outrages.
Predictably, according to the Cowboy State Daily:
Both Rasner and Gray are Catholic and if that's all they could muster up people who sit next to them at Mass on Sunday ought to ask them what's the matter with them.
Elsewhere this was an act that finally had a reaction. Like Johnson noted, you have to wonder where these people were all along. Trump fan Riley Gaines noted:
Seriously I cannot understand why he’d post this. Is he looking for a response? Does he actually think this?
Gaines must have been asleep for the past decade to actually post a query on Trump's character. He's self centered and narcissistic, and she seems surprised.
This trend locally and nationally shows that the wheels are really coming off of MAGA. A Turning Point USA convention that was just held was grossly under attended. Locally Republicans for the first time feel able to criticize Trump. There's a significant movement in the state to boot out the Wyoming Freedom Caucus. A bipartisan movement in the House caused the removal of a Democratic and a Republican sex abuser, bypassing the pathetic Mike Johnson. It appears the Democrats are going to take the Senate and the House.
For the Republicans, the good thing is that they are finally out of the cave to a degree. The GOP has been wrecked by Donald Trump, but this may actually give them a chance to start to rebuild it, whereas waiting until after the November election will be utterly too late.
cont:
I recognize that a lot of young voters don't love the policy we have in the Middle East. Okay. I understand that. Don't get disengaged because you disagree with the administration on one topic. Get more involved. That's how we ultimately take the country back.
J. D. Vance.
WTF?
Vance did oppose the war. We know that as he leaked like crazy. But getting involved would mean booting the GOP into the dustbin, maybe forever.
Vance has remade himself repeatedly. A person now stating that this is how "we take the country back" is raising interesting questions about where he himself is headed. He's including himself in the "we" who are young and who oppose the policy in the Middle East.
Is Vance having a Humber Humphrey moment?
It'll be interesting to see if this is Vance's first cautious step into independence. He's not dumb, and he obviously sees and even acknowledges that the GOP is going into the dumpster. That statement would seem to be a declaration of independence from Trump.
April 17, 2026
Governor Gordon confirmed that he is not running for a third term.
While we're unlikely to mention this race again, Sheriff Harlan is running for reelection in Natrona County, Wyoming.
Rep. Harshman of Natrona County is running for Superintendent of Public Instruction. He'd make a very good choice for this position, but it puts his house district in play. A far right wing candidate was challenging Harshman as well as a Democrat.
Albert Sommers is running for the seat he lost in the last election, House District 20. It fell to a WFC member.
April 19, 2026
Yesterday was the day of dueling mail flyers for the U.S. House race. Identically sized campaign flyers for Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner arrived in the mailboxes of Natrona County residents. Apparently the Gray ones went statewide.
They were really laughable. Gray's depicts the diminutive Californian standing next to Donald Trump, looking slightly above him. Trump is something like 6'2" tall where as Gray is absolutely tiny. I'm not a very large person, 5'6", and I look down on Gray, which says something. Gray has also taken up wearing western wool shirts in an effort to make him look like a Wyomingite, but which really point out that he isn't. His campaign is based on far right MAGA platforms and sticking next to, and apparently slightly above, the demented belle of the far right ball, Trump.
Rasner, who has no chance, attacked Gray in his, and frankly some of his attacks are landing. He may carve votes away from Gray.
Locally, small business owner Neil Jeske announced he was running to take on J. R. Riggins in House District 59, which includes part of Casper and all of Mills.
Riggins is probably in trouble as he only won in that race in the first place as he was the only one running. He missed the first legislature he was supposed to serve in entirely due to heart problems. I saw him at a political event before the last legislative session and he really appeared to be out to sea.
Unfortunately, Jeske is the candidate that Natrona County doesn't need. He already is on the reduce spending and reduce regulation platform. Wyoming already has so little regulation that the state government would have to go out and regulate something in order for their to be regulation to cut, and the legislature is so cheap that Wyoming has very large financial reserves that just sit there as the state won't distribute funds to local governments, their only real way of getting them. We probably need more regulation and less financial restraint.
Jeske is apparently a truck driver. I don't know what Riggins is. At any rate, truck driving in 2026 is sort of like being a teamster in 1916. It's a real job. . . and one that's about to disappear. Hopefully somebody else will step up and run.
April 21, 2026
Based upon his campaign propaganda, Jeske, mentioned above, is a worst pick than Riggins. He's another out of state implant and of far right wing views. He's going on the don't vote for list.
Riggins, on the other hand, based on his public lands voting, appears to have risen to his position.
April 22, 2026
In the move The Hunt For Red October the pursuing Soviet submarine commander orders the safeties taken off of his torpedoes so he can hit the Red October from close range. The U.S. submarine USS Dallas deflects the aim of the fired torpedo which circles back and hits the Soviet sub. As it happens, a Soviet submariner tells his captain, "You arrogant ass, you killed us".
That's exactly what Donald Trump is doing to the GOP.
More particularly, that's what he did by demanding that Texas redistrict out of cycle.
Worried that thing were turning against him, Trump demanded that compliant Texas Governor Abbot cause the GOP controlled Texas legislature to convene and specially redistrict. Abbot, to his everlasting shame, complied.
Trump is apparently so dim that he didn't realize the same strategy could be used against him. First California did it, and now Virginia did.
Even accepting the conventional math, there are now more Democratic districts that added to the map for the fall than there are Republican ones, although only barely so. Still, the results are remarkable. In Virginia, where it was done by the voters, it will mean that Virginia returns to being an overwhelmingly Democratic state in terms of is House or Representatives delegates. Trump actually completely flipped an entire state from Republican to Democrat prior to the election itself.
The GOP, in order to keep this game up, must now have Florida do the same thing. It's not assured, however, as Florida is starting to go to the Democratic Party a bit all on its own. Redistricting may simply assure that occurs.
And ironically, the Texas result may have added Democratic seats in Texas. Texas actually has more Democratic voters than Republicans. In recent years its only been a Republican state for the same reason the rest of the South is. But Texas also has heavily Hispanic districts. Trump took them in 2024, but now that's changing.
And this from a guy who claimed to master "the art of the deal".
A note here about one state that tried to redistrict and couldn't, that being Utah.
Most Western states have a much better system than the rest of the country and require fair and balanced redistricting. Much of the rest of the country which had Democratic administrations was moving that way. Republicans, who were rapidly becoming a minority party in the 1990s, resisted it. That's why in Californian and Virginia, redistricting is being democratically. It's also the reason why in one Midwestern state that's currently done this way the legislature refused to consider redistricting even though its Republican controlled. They knew the voters, in that instance, would take it out on them.
In Utah, a court turned the effort around. It was only one seat, but that shows something interesting. Utah has a Democratic Congressional seat. Utah's the same state that sent Mike Lee to Congress for some reason, but not every district fits that mold.
And in a state like Wyoming, which of course only has one Congressional seat, this couldn't happen as it would be against the state constitution.
cont:
Wyoming Public Radio reports that for the House race, Reid Rasner, who will go down in August like a kerosene doused biplane flying through a blast furnace, has raised $1.2 M in this campaign, the majority of which is a loan from himself. Chuck Gray has done the same and nearly approached $1M.
Committing that amount of money to a job that pays a fraction of that per year should flat out be illegal. We need to address that in our "don't vote for" list, which has been switched over to being a page on the website, rather than a thread.
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The 2026 Election, 6th Edition, Campaigning before defeats.
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