The 2026 Election, 1st Edition: Spring Training Edition.

Walter "Big Train" Johnson, April 11, 1924.

Yes, the 2024 Election hasn't even occured yet, and the 2026 one is clearly on, at least locally.

What we can tell for sure is that Chuck Gray is running for the office of Governor.  He always was.  The Secretary of State's office was very clearly a mere stepping stone in that plan, and the plan probably goes on from there.   By coming to Wyoming, a state with a low population and a pronounced history of electing out of staters (we nearly have some sort of personality problem in that regard), it was a good bet, particularly when combined with his family money, although it was never a sure bet that he'd make the legislature and on from there.  His plan requires, however, or at least he seemingly believes it requires, that he keep his name in the news, which he's worked hard to do, being involved in lawsuits, which is probably unconstitutional on his part, and releasing press releases that are extraordinary for his role, and for the invective language they contain.  Mr. Gray has probably used the term "radical leftists" more in his two years of office than all of the prior Wyoming Secretaries of State combined.

This explains something that was otherwise a bit odd that we noticed recently, which was Secretary Gray's appearance in Casper in opposition of something he'd otherwise voted for:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 63d Edition. Strange Bedfellows.

 

Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows.

William Shakespeare, The Tempest

The environmental populists?

Politics, as they say, makes for strange bedfellows.  But how strange, nonetheless still surprises.

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray, who rose to that position by pitching to the populist far right, which dominates the politics of the GOP right now, and which appears to be on the verge of bringing the party down nationally, has tacked in the wind in a very surprising direction.  He appeared this past week at a meeting in Natrona County to oppose a proposed gravel pit project at the foot of Casper Mountain.  He actually pitched for the upset residents in the area to mobilize and take their fight to Cheyenne, stating:

We have a very delicate ecosystem, the fragility up there, the fragility of the flows … the proximity to domestic water uses. All of those things should have led to a distinct treatment by the Office of State Lands, and that did not happen.

I am, frankly, stunned.  

I frankly never really expected Mr. Gray to darken visage of the Pole Stripper monument on the east side of Casper's gateway, which you pass by on the road in from Cheyenne again, as he's not from here and doesn't really have a very strong connection to the state, although in fairness that connection would have been to Casper, where he was employed by his father's radio station and where he apparently spent the summers growing up (in an unhappy state of mind, according to one interview of somebody who knew him then).  Gray pretty obviously always had a political career in mind and campaigned from the hard populist right from day one, attempting at first to displace a conservative house member unsuccessfully.

We have a post coming up which deals with the nature of populism, and how it in fact isn't conservatism.  Gray was part of the populist rise in the GOP, even though his background would more naturally have put him in the conservative camp, not the populist one.  But opportunity was found with populists, who now control the GOP state organization.  The hallmark of populism, as we'll explore elsewhere, is a belief in the "wisdom of the people", which is its major failing, and why it tends to be heavily anti-scientific and very strongly vested in occupations that people are used to, but which are undergoing massive stress.  In Wyoming that's expressed itself with a diehard attitude that nothing is going on with the climate and that fossil fuels will be, must have, and are going to dominate the state's economy forever.   The months leading up to the recent legislative session, and the legislative session itself, demonstrated this with Governor Gordon taking criticism for supporting anything to address carbon concerns.  Put fairly bluntly, because a large percentage of Wyoming's rank and file workers depend on the oil and gas industry, and things related to it, any questioning on anything tends to be taken as an attack on "the people".

Natrona County has had a gravel supply problem for quite a while and what the potential miner seeks to do here is basically, through the way our economy works, address it.  There would be every reason to suspect that all of the state's politicians who ran to the far right would support this, and strongly.  But they aren't.

The fact that Gray is not, and is citing environmental concerns, comes as a huge surprise.  But as noted, given his background, he's probably considerably more conservative than populist, but has acted as politicians do, and taken aid and comfort where it was offered.  Tara Nethercott ran as a conservative and lost for the same office.

But here's the thing.

That gravel is exactly the sort of thing that populists, if they're true to what they maintain they stand for, ought to support.  It's good for industry, and the only reason to oppose the mining is that 1) it's in a bad place in terms of the neighbors and 2) legitimate environmental concerns, if there are any.  But that's exactly the point.  You really can't demand that the old ways carry on, until they're in your backyard.  

Truth be known, given their nature, a lot of big environmental concerns are in everyone's backyard right now.

The old GOP would have recognized that nationally, and wouldn't be spending all sorts of time back in DC complaining about electric vehicles.  And if people are comfortable with things being destructive elsewhere, they ought to be comfortable with them being destructive right here.  If we aren't, we ought to be pretty careful about it everywhere.

There actually is some precedent for this, FWIW.  A hallmark of Appalachian populism was the lamenting of what had happened to their region due to coal mining.  John Prine's "Paradise" in some ways could be an environmental populist anthem.

Right about the time I noted this, Rod Miller, opinion writer for the Cowboy State Daily, wrote a satiric article on the same thing:

Rod Miller: Flip-Flops Around The Ol’ Campfire

We have no idea, of course, who his opponent will be, unless it's Gordon, who is theoretically term limited out, but we already know from prior litigation that the restraint on his running again is unconstitutional.  And Gordon clearly doesn't like Gray, a dislike that's not limited to him by any means.  Gordon would have to challenge that in court, however, unless 1) a group of citizens does, and 2) the court ruled they'd have standing.

As voters, they should.

If that happens, I wouldn't be surprised to see Gordon run again, and to be asked to run again.  While he was a candidate initially I worried about him, as he was further to the right on public lands issues than any candidate since Geringer, but he's actually acted as a very temperate Governor, something made difficult by 1) the intemperate level of our current politics, and 2) the occasional shortsightedness of the legislature.¹

Anyhow, if you've ever had the occasion to see, Gordon and Gray together in an official setting, it's clear they don't get along.  Indeed, on the State Land Board, it's clear that Gordon isn't the only one that's not keen on Gray.  Gray for his part reacts back, as he did recently when he sent an unprecedented lengthy letter to the Governor on his vetoes. 

Gray, like Donald Trump, has some feverish admirers.²  Indeed, this seems to be a hallmark of the populist right.  They not only run candidates, but they develop personality cults routinely.

Rod Miller, again, in a recent column noted a real problem that Gray has.  As, so far, they haven't really been able to advance their agenda without the help of conservatives, they have an advantage there as they always portray themselves as besieged by the numerous barbarians, the last legionnaire on Hadrian's Wall.  Trump has actually, at a national level, worked to keep that status by ordering his party to defeat immigration legislation that was probably a once in a lifetime conservative opportunity.

Anyhow, as noted, Rod Miller recently noted a problem that Gray has.  He's not married.

Rod Miller: Bride Of Chucky – Or – Advice To The Lovelorn From The Ol’ Campfire

Is this actually a problem?

It shouldn't be, but it might be.

Indeed, without going into it, there was a figure in Wyoming decades ago whose marriage was questioned by whisperers on the basis that they believed he married just to end the speculation on why he wasn't married.   The marriage lasted a very long time, so presumably the rumors were without foundation, but there were questions, which is interesting and shows, I guess, how people's minds can work.  

Another way to look at it, I supposed, was prior to Trump if a person was a conservative people would ask about things that appeared to be contrary to public statements about conservatism.  Not being married, for a conservative, was regarded as odd, and for that matter there are still people who whisper about Lindsey Graham, while nobody seems to worry about AOC being shacked up with her boyfriend or whatever is going on with Krysten Sinema. 

And then there's Gray's age.  It will make people suspicious of him at some point, or people will at least take note.  Indeed, some of his critics from the left already have, but in a really juvenile way.

Actually determining Gray's age is a little difficult, and indeed, knowing anything about his background actually is.  But Cowboy State Daily, a conservative organ, managed to reveal about as much as we know.

Gray was born in California and raised outside of Los Angeles.  According to somebody close to the family, or who was, he was homeschooled by his mother.³ He felt uncomfortable about his birthplace, and stated in the campaign

I come from a divorced family, like many people in our country. A judge said I was to live in a different place, but my dad lived here, built a business here, and I spent my summers here during the time that was allocated by the judge.

According to the same source, he didn't seem all that happy in Casper, Wyoming as a kid, but the circumstances could well explain that.  The same source, who probably isn't a family friend anymore, reported to the Cowboy that Gray's father had a focus on the family owned radio station impacting legislation at a national level.  Photos have been circulated of the father with President Reagan.

Gray graduated from high school in 2008 and the respected University of Pennsylvanian in 2012, which makes it all the more remarkable that he's been a success in Wyoming politics.⁴   If we assume the norm about graduation ages, he would have been 22 in 2012, which would make him 34 now.

In Wyoming, the average age for men to marry is 27.8 years on average, while for women it's 25.6.  Gray's now notably over the median age, but that is a median.  I was over it too when I married at age 31.  My wife was below the female one.  That's how averages work.

My parents, I'd note, were both over the median, although I don't know it with precision for the 1950s.  In the 50s, the marriage age was actually at an unusual low.  My father was 29, and my mother 32.

So his age, in the abstract, doesn't really mean anything overall, although it might personality wise.

As has been noted elsewhere on this site, Gray is a Roman Catholic and indeed I've seen him occasionally at Mass, although I would never have seen him every weekend as there are a lot of weekend Masses and my habits aren't the same as his.  I have no reason to believe that he didn't attend weekly as required by the church.⁵  Catholics are supposed to observe traditional Catholic teachings in regard to sex and marriage.  I'm not really going to be delving into that, but again we have no reason to believe that Gray isn't observant, in which case, as he is not married, he should be living as a chaste single man, and he probably is (something that has casued juvenile left wing ribbing).

Wyoming, however, is the least religious state in the union and while Catholics, Orthodox, Mormons and Protestants of traditional morality observe that morality, here, as with the rest of the United States, the late stage mass casualty nature of the Sexual Revolution means that a lot of people in these faiths don't, and the society at large does not.  We've gone from a society where such outside the bounds of marriage behavior was illegal in varying degrees, to one where, nationwide, society pushes people into things whether they want to or not.

Be that as it may, save for Casper, Laramie, and probably Cheyenne, sexual conduct outside the biological gender norm is very much looked down upon.  Indeed, in a really dense move, a Democratic Albany County legislator went to a meeting in Northeast Wyoming a while back on homosexual issues and was shocked by the hostile reception she received.  She shouldn't have been.

No, I'm not saying this applies to Gray.  I have no reason to believe that, and indeed I believe the opposite.

However, we've gone from a state whose ethos was "I don't care what you do as long as you leave me alone" to one in which, largely due to the importation of Evangelicals from elsewhere, a fairly large percentage of the population really care about what you do, particularly if they don't like it.

Indeed, at the time that Matthew Shepard was murdered, I was surprised when I heard an anti-homosexual comment.  Such comments do not surprise me now, and I wouldn't be surprised to hear one now in the context of a murder.  As noted, the exceptions seem to be Laramie (where Shepard was murdered, but which has never been hostile to homosexuals), Casper (which has had a homosexual 20 something mayor and which has a lesbian city council member) and Cheyenne (which has a homosexual member of the state House, as does Albany County).  Well, I omitted Jackson and should include it here too.

At any rate, being an open homosexual and aiming for major office probably is impossible, although for minor ones it hasn't proven to be.  The point is, however, that Miller is right. At some point, people are going to start wondering why staunchly populist Gray isn't married.

Maybe it's because he is in fact a staunchly populist out of state import.  There aren't that many women in that pool.  Indeed, having a one time vague contact with our staunchly populist Congresswoman, I was very surprised when it turned out she was a populist, or even a conservative.  I'm not saying that she's not, I'm just surprised.

Gray is in a sort of oddball demographic.  Not being from here, he wouldn't be in any circles in which women from here, professionals or otherwise, would be in.  He appears to really be a fish out of water in terms of the local culture.  When he appears at things, he does wear cowboy boots, but you can tell they've never been in a stirrup, and he otherwise is, at least based on my very limited observation of him, always dressed in what we might sort of regard as 1980s Denver Business Casual.  I'd be stunned if I saw him on a trout stream or out in the prairie with his bird dog, Rex.  I've seen him at a bar once, for a grand opening of something, but I don't imagine him walking up to the tender at The Buckhorn or The Oregon Trail and ordering a double Jack Daniel's either.

I was once told by an out-of-state lawyer who had been born in the state but who had moved to Denver after graduating from law school, regarding Wyomingites, that "you have to be tough just to live there".  People who live here probably don't realize that, but there's more than a little truth to it.  I'm often shocked by the appearance of populist legislature Jeanette Ward, as it's so clear she just doesn't belong here.  She's not the kind of gal who would be comfortable sitting next to the ranch girl chewing tobacco who has the "Wrangler Butts Drive Me Nuts" bumper sticker on her pickup truck.⁶   Gray probably isn't comfortable with such a gal either.  "Tomboys", as they used to be called, are sort of the mean average for Wyoming women.  

Gray is well-educated, of course, which is part of the reason that I suspect a lot of his positions are affectations.  I don't think he really believes the election was stolen, for example, unless he's doing so willfully, which would mean that he really doesn't believe that.  Recently he's taken on the topic of firearms arguing, as part of the State Facilities Commission, that the state needs to open up carrying guns at the capitol, which is frankly absurd.  While I don't know the answer, I suspect that Gray isn't really a firearms' aficionado. 

Up until very recently, Wyomingites knew a lot about the people they sent to the legislature and public office, often knowing them personally to some degree.  We actually knew the Governor and the First Lady on some basis other than politics, quite frequently, and our local reps we knew pretty well.  The populist invasion defeated that to some degree, and in some cases, a great deal.  The question is whether this is permanent, or temporary.  It wasn't until the last election that people looked at Gray's background at all, and they still have very little.  People haven't really grasped until just now that many of the Freedom Caucus are imports, not natives.  We don't know much about some of them or their families, and chances are an average Wyomingite, or at least a long term native, would regard them as odd on some occasions.  Chuck Gray just ran an op ed that was titled something like Only Wyomingites Should Vote In Wyoming's Elections.  Most long term and native born Wyomingites feel that strongly, and wouldn't actually regard a lot of our current office holders as being Wyomingites.

There's evidence that the populist fad is passing. We'll see. This and the 2026 election will be a test of it.  2026 is a long ways off.  For that matter, it's sufficiently long enough for these candidates to evolve if they need to. Some are probably capable of doing that.  Others, undoubtedly not.  The question will be if they need to.

May 11, 2024

It's very clear, to those paying any attention, that Wyoming elected executive branch officials really dislike Chuck Gray, including those who are very conservative.  This became evident again when Superintendant of Education Degenfelder indicated Wyoming would join a Title IX lawsuit in opposition to the Federal Government's new rules on "transgender" atheletes.  Degenfelder indicated that she'd been working behind the scenes with Gov. Gordon on this matter.  In doing so she blasted Gray who earlier made comments wondering where the state's officials were on this matter, even though his office has less than 0 responsiblity in this department.  Degenfelder stated in regard to Gray, "I would encourage Secretary Gray to join those of us actually making plays on the field rather than just heckling from the sidelines".  Gray, who is a Californian who has lived very little of his life in Wyoming save for summers here while growing up, declared in response he was on "Team Wyoming".

FWIW, Wyoming really doesn't need to particpate in lawsuits maintained by other parties, as they're already maintained.

July 8, 2024

Now here's an interesting development. . . 

I may have mentioned on this blog before that I feel Gov. Gordon should consider running, text of the Wyoming Constitution aside, for a third term.  In doing so, if I did (I know that I've discussed with people) I've noted that the Constitutional prohibition on him doing so violates the Wyoming Constitution.

Turns out that I'm not the only one speculating on that.

Chuck Gray Says He Won’t Certify Candidacy If Gordon Seeks 3rd Term

And it turns out that Chuck Gray doesn't like the idea at all.

January 7, 2025

I managed to miss it, but back in November, Brent Bien announced for Governor.

Bien is on the far right, and is a Wyoming native, but he spent 28 years in the Marine Corps before retiring in 2019 and coming back to the state.  This puts him in the camp of far right Republicans in the state who spent their entire working lives drawing on one of richest portions of the government t** while also never actually having to make sure a business actually functioned.  

I've never quite grasped "trust me, I know how run things for the common man. . .I've never actually had to work in a business. . . "

Moreover, Bien was a prime mover on the initiatives that will be on the ballot to cut property taxes 50%, essentially meaning he's backing bankrupting local governments and schools.  So, after living off of taxpayers for his adult life, having retired, with a retirement funded by taxpayers, he doesn't want to pay them himself.

Well, Bien will have competition, as we know.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 70th Edition. Inside Wyoming Political Baseball

Labels: 1890s, 1990s, 2026 Election, Johnson County War, Lies, Politics, Public Land, Sagebrush Rebellion, Wyoming

March 14, 2025

Cynthia Lummis ‘Gearing Up For Reelection’ To US Senate In 2026

Rob Hendry leads slate in sweep of Natrona County Republican Party leadership

Footnotes

1. There are numerous examples of this, but a really good one is Gordon's effort to buy the UP checkerboard, which the legislature defeated.  It would have been a real boon for the state, but fiscal conservatives just couldn't see it that way.

Recently, Gordon hasn't been shy about vetoing highly unadvised bills that have come out of the legislature, or shutting down bad regulations that come out of the Secretary of State's office.

2.  And not just Gray, Harriet Hageman does as well.

3. Homeschooling, for whatever reason a person does it, can be developmentally limiting.  I don't know about Gray's case, but its notable that some on the far right have done it, as they believe that schools are left wing organs and there are things they don't want their children exposed to them.  The problem this presents is that children who are homeschooled grow up in a very narrow environment, whereas, at least here, those who go to public, and for that matter religious schools, do not.

4. There used to be a school interview of him from the University of Pennsylvania, in which he expressed a desire to become a lawyer.  He's clearly not going to do that now, unless of course his political career ended, which is perfectly possible.

5.  As noted here in prior posts, lying is regarded as a potentially serious sin in Catholicism, and lying about something like who won the 2020 election would be, in some circumstances, a mortal sin if you were a political figure.  

6.  Ward is from Illinois and openly calls herself a political refugee. At the time of moving here, she posted something about her children not having to wear masks in our public schools, adopting the far right wing view that trying to protect others in this fashion is somehow an intrusion on liberty.  I suppose it is, but not relieving yourself in public is as well.  Anyhow, at some point, presuming those children remain in public school, she'll be in for a shock as Casper's schools truly have a really wide demographic and are not exactly made up of an Evangelical populist sample of the population.

March 25, 2025

Hmmm. . . the tide seems to be coming in.

Former Wyoming Legislators Win Big In County Republican Party Elections

March 29, 2025

Donald Trump has endorsed Cynthia Lummis.

Related threads:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 70th Edition. Inside Wyoming Political Baseball

Labels: 1890s, 1990s, 2026 Election, Johnson County War, Lies, Politics, Public Land, Sagebrush Rebellion, Wyoming

Razor Thin.

 

This is interesting.  The GOP margin has been thin all along.  But there are two elections coming up in Florida. Those have been predicted to go to the GOP, but maybe its looking like they will not.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 78th Edition. We'd like to inform you that terrible things are being done in your name, edition.

The caption comes this week from a letter the publishers of The New Republic wrote to Stalin, when one of their reporters wrote back on atrocities being committed in the Soviet Union in the early 1930s. 

Crowd jeers Hageman at tense Laramie town hall. She calls them ‘hysterical.’: Wyoming’s lone congresswoman faced tough questions and angry constituents Wednesday night.

Not just Laramie, but also solidly Republican Rock Springs and Evanston.

Indeed, all over the country, when Republicans show up in their home districts.

Indeed, the event in Evanston was so notable that a populist apologist felt compelled to write an Op Ed for the Cowboy State Daily.

Jonathan Lange: Barbuto’s Miscalculation Released The Flying Monkeys

Lange you may, but probably don't, recognize as Rev. Lange of the Missouri Synod of the Lutheran Church, who has his own blog, Only Human.  He's reliably pro Trump and Pro Populist, which brings up one of the real ironies of populism, which is deeply religious people supporting a movement lead by some wildly irreligious people, as we've discussed elsewhere, so we'll only note that Trump is, in Christian terms, an adulterer living in an adulterous irregular relationship as well as being a serial liar, and Musk is an atheist.  Lange came to the attention of some in the state by opposing the successful bill to make child marriage illegal.

But we digress.

What's really notable, is that even here in deep Trump country people are really reacting to DOGE and aren't happy about it.

And that's not all they aren't happy about.

March 24, 2025

A coal mine near Kemmerer is laying off 28 workers.

Tesla chargers have been vandalized with swastikas in Rock Springs.

Kemmerer balked at an immigration detention center.

In far Western Wyoming coal continues to fail, as it will, as coal's days are over, but that hasn't caused deeply Republican Kemmerer to say "yes, we'll sign up for the deportation frenzy" and take an immigrant concentration camp.

Interesting.

Anyhow, I'll give Hageman credit for simply going to Laramie, where she must have known that she'd encounter real hostility.  But her response to a LGBTQ was really wrong headed in a city that's sought to overcome the murder of Matthew Shepard for decades.  

She called the crowd "hysterical".  They weren't hysterical, they were angry.

So far Hageman hasn't toured north of the Union Pacific, which is interesting.  I wonder why, sincerely?

Someone else who is touring is Bernie Sanders, and AoC.

They drew a crowd of 30,000 or more in Denver last week, which Sanders says is the largest crowd he's ever spoken to.

AoC is obviously considering running against the pathetic Chuck Schumer.

Also, in Colorado:

Walking the fine line of ‘all of the above’: Two Republicans from #Colorado add names to letter calling for restraint in gutting of #climate legislation — Allen Best (BigPivots.com) #ActOnClimate

One of the really interesting things that's starting to happen in the Trump world is the same thing that happened in the Socialist left world during the 20s and 30s, that being the belief that the dear leader doesn't know about what the Party is doing.  I saw this on Facebook, which is just about as far to the left as Wyomingite's normally go, from somebody who is about as far to the right as possible.

So again, in our home State of Wyoming, the left wing lunacy continues to try to rob Wyoming of more original beauty. My understanding is that the Duncan Ranch was to be used for Agriculture and ag based education only. How is it that these are even being considered?!?! Anyone that knows this area can attest to its beauty yet now, that is threatened. I warned people that the State Lands and BLM would be the next spots for these to be in the crosshairs. Those who have allowed these on their private property have opened the door for them to continue to push for this failed technology. So here it is, they want to build on public ground like it's no big deal. There are already whispers of eminent domain coming into play for the future of these cancers as well. It must stop! There is absolutely nothing green about the agenda they push. Wyoming is Oil, Gas, Coal  Agriculture, and Tourism. We are not some waistland where you can just stand your turbines up and collect a check. Our Natural Resources are the reason our State isn't bankrupt like the liberals who surround us. Why are we so worried about pandering to these other states that don't follow or respect our way of life? At one time a few years ago, the Natrona County Commissioners agreed 4 to 1 to allowing all of these turbines just North of Casper at 20 Mile Hill. They did so even tho there was standing room only in the courthouse in opposition. So now, there are windturbines in our back yard. It's sickening. Blinking lights at night as far as you can see. The beautiful sunrise that generations of my family has enjoyed for years is now ruined by towering monstrocies.  However, when it came time to vote on those commissioners who's term was up, WE THE PEOPLE replaced them. Now, we have a commission who is strong for the people. The most recent green deal that came before these new commissioners for approval got shot down 3 to 2. They understand Wyoming doesn't want this crap in our back yard.

My point is, whoever is not standing for Wyoming, needs voted out and if we want to protect our Wyoming and our tax dollars, these projects need to be met with lots of opposition by, "We The People".

The Duncan Ranch, which this individual is worried about, justifiably, is not in Natrona County.  It's in Converse County, which never saw any kind of industrial project of any kind it didn't like.  And the rancher, and that's what he is, who is upset, is justifiably upset, but he's being about as green and distributist as can be, and doesn't know it.

Anyhow, these projects weren't backed by a bunch of raving environmentalist here.

Hydrogen project major wind farm at & near Duncan Ranch, seeks state approval this week

They were backed by major heavy industry.  And by the county its in, which has supported every single one of these projects without question.  Indeed, the only County Commission which didn't support one was the Natrona County Commission, which actually was largely made up of the same people who had supported the prior ones in the county, in spite of what the Facebook fellow says.  I think there's only one new Commissioner.

Trump seems backed by billionaires.  

People don't really seem happy with what's actually occurring.

By the way, one of the things that's occurring is that the Trump Administration is going to require you appear in person to apply for Social Security. . . while they're also closing Social Security offices.  Rock Spring's office is being closed.  Casper's isn't listed, but the entire building is suggested to be sold, which could mean that Casperites would have to probably drive three hours to Cheyenne, or five to Denver.

Not to worry, no billionaire will be harmed by this decision.

Postscript:

From Rep Hageman's newsletter:

Rock Springs Social Security Office Update

Late last week, we began receiving calls from constituents concerned by a media article reporting that the Rock Springs Social Security Office was closing. I immediately reached out to the agency and was able to confirm that the allegation was inaccurate. The agency has canceled the lease for an ancillary hearing room it no longer uses, and those hearings will now be held at an alternative location, but the office itself will remain open. You can read more about the new SSA efficiencies here.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 77th Edition. A bridge too far?

Labels: Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, Russo Ukrainian War, The Second Trump Administration, Ukraine, Vladimir Putin, Vladimir Zelinsky, Zeitgeist

Lex Anteinternet: What's Wrong with the United States? Cultural and linguistic ignorance.

Lex Anteinternet: What's Wrong with the United States? We're really...: Can you imagine this scene today?  The older man (who in context is probably in his 50s) would be staring blankly into space, while the youn...

Let's revisit this topic just a bit.

I went to university in the 1980s.  Prior to entering university it was emphasized to me that I'd need to learn a foreign language.  I checked it out, and that was in fact quite correct. The courses of study I was looking at, which were scientific in nature, all required foreign languages in order to graduate.

In junior high I took French.  The options were French, Latin, or Spanish.  French was my choice as my mother spoke French and I had a cultural connection to it.  In high school I took German, as my father knew it and I had a cultural connection to it.  In university, as a science major, I took German.  Two semesters of basic German and one of German literature, in German.  I.e., the whole class was taught in German.

It's not too much to ask.

I've never regretted a moment I've dedicated to languages outside of the mother tongue.

My father took German in university and already spoke it and Latin.  My mother majored in French, which she already knew how to speak, but she knew Latin as well.

A century ago a university student wouldn't have made it out of university without a command of Latin and Greek.

For that matter, a university student, no matter what they would have taken, would have had a familiarity with the Middle English classics.

These things are not unimportant.  Part of the reason we are in the fix we are today is that the occupant of the Oval Office speaks gibberish, like an uneducated moron.  Many Americans who are ostensibly well educated cannot get by, even in a rudimentary fashion, in a foreign tongue.  In this regard, the average illegal immigrant from south of the border is much better educated linguistically and culturally than the average American.

Exposure to a foreign language, even if you forget it, is illuminating as the culture of the language will come to you to some degree.  This presents a strong argument for Latin returning as a requirement for university, as we're all latent residents of the Roman Empire and don't know it, through its culture.  Electing a Presiden twho speaks GibberyDoo is good evidence of how far we've fallen. Like the Vandals smashing the mosaics to see if the animals were trapped in the floor, we're smashing the country and the culture as we're equally ignorant.

That can be stopped, and should be.

Monday, February 23, 1925. Puyi moves.

Deposed Chinese Emperor Puyi accepted a Japanese offer of projection and moved to the  moved to the Japanese concession of Tianjin.

An item from Reddit's 100 Years Ago Today sub:

Truly awful.

It's really the early 1920s, not the 1970s, that gave rise to a really powerful "women's liberation" movement, although you can find it building in the decades prior to that.  The 20s, however, saw it really blossom in much the same way that it would later, with much of the same goals.  As with the movement in the 70s, it met with some pretty nasty counter reactions.

Coeds themselves, meaning women in college, was a fairly new thing in this form.  It wasn't really until the post war economic boom of the 1920s that a lot of women began to leave home to attend college for a secondary education.  

I'm not a feminist, of course, but part of the horror of the Trump years is watching these sorts of attitudes creep back in and begin to be expressed openly.

Last edition:

Saturday, February 21, 1925. A Republican President declares American Forest Week.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Calvin Coolidge, Cartoons, Clothing, Conservation, Daily Living, Movies, Teenagers, United States Forest Service, Women

The REAL Reason MEN VOTED for TRUMP… | Scott Galloway

On hating the government. Being careful what you wish for, if you don't really grasp what you are wishing for. American Populists and the return to a mythical age.

A friend and I were discussing the current state of affairs and the Donald Trump assault/Project 2025's aggault/Wyoming Freedom Caucus on the government.  We both are pretty conservatives fellows.  We both served in the Army.  We both are lawyers.  Both of our fathers were Korean War veterans.

We're both horrified.

In part we're horrified as it clear that a huge portion of Trump's base absolutely hates their own government.  Just hates it.

In the discussion, something occurred to me.

The world the MAGA/Populist/Project 2025 people wish for is one they've never seen nor experienced.  A lot of them, quite frankly, don't have the capacity to grasp what it was like.

More than a few of them don't have the capacity to live in a world like that either.

No American born before 1932 lived in the world these people imagine as perfect.  That means, in my case, as a member of Generation Jones, and even more so for the Baby Boom Generation, the last people they know who experienced it was their grandparents.

Or more likely, their great grandparents.

And our grandparents are all dead.

There's no living memory of it at all.

Nobody has one, at all.

The first President I voted for, as noted here, was Ronald Reagan in the 1984 Presidential election.  I thinking of it, the first Presidential election my father could have voted in, when the voatin gage was 21, would have been the 1952 Presidential election. The first Presidential election I can remember, although only vaguely, is the 1968 Presidential election, when I was five years old.  If that held true for my father, the first one he would have remembered would have been the 1936 Presidential election, at which time FDR was already well into establishing the government that Musk and Trump are destroying.

It was the Great Depression that brought the government into people's lives in a major way, although that it was going to happen was foreshadowed by the Progressive Era.  Theodore Roosevelt was really the first "imperial President" who was willing to broadly act with executive orders.  Franklin Roosevelt expanded the government enormously, however, in reaction to the extreme economic distress.   That gave us the government we have today, but World War Two and the Cold War expanded it.

FDR, of court, brought big government in, and with World War Two proving that it was necessary to retain it, and the Cold War building on that, we've had it ever since.  But we might be able to state that modern American government goes all the way back to 1900, before Theodore Roosevelt really started to bring in the progressives and the concept that the government was supposed to make things safe and fair for average people.  

The generation that had lived through the Great Depression and the war were grateful for the larger Federal role and accepted it.  It wasn't until the late 1960s that things began to be questioned.  Even by then most Americans had no real memory of a day when the Federal Government was only active nationwide to a limited extent.

Nobody has that memory now.

What will this all mean?

Well, assuming that Must/Trump pulls it off, starting here in a few months, a real schock.  And the best evidence is, so far, that Musk/Trump will have enormously wrecked the Federal Government in that time period, no matter what happens with Trump himself (and there are growing signs that Trump isn't really going to be around that long).

And the shock that will ensue will be in everything from what amounts to minor irritations to body bags.

Wyoming is going to have to pay for its own forest fires, and fight them on their own for one thing, snarky comments from Cowboy State Daily imported columnist aside.  The State's going to have to pay for its own highways as well, which it can't afford.  Things will just burn, and the highways decay.

And we'll be at the tender mercy of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which seemingly hates state government as well. Municipal services are really going to take a hit, to include police and fire fighting.

Education, which the WFC basically opposes, as students might learn the world is older than 5,000 years and God might not be limited to the restrictions people who can't imagine a world older than that would demand to be placed on, will be gutted.

Benefits provided to all kids of people through the Federal Government, from Veterans benefits to Medicaid, are in real danger.

A Federal and state government that makes sure your food, water, and living conditions are safe, won't be there.  

Robber Barons, however, will be there once again, for the first time in well over a century.

The truth is, most people won't like living in a United States that's a third world nation.  But the rich will, as the rich have always profited in the third world.  And that, not some sort of rugged paradise, is where we're headed.

Calvinist believers were psychologically isolated. Their distance from God could only be precariously bridged, and their inner tensions only partially relieved, by unstinting, purposeful labor.

Max Weber, The Protestant Ethic and the "Spirit" of Capitalism

As part of that, the National Conservatives and the populists seem to outright hate government employees.  That's already come up in of comments about them, one being how they'll go into "more productive" work.  This group has a very Protectant Work Ethic view of life, in which your Calvinist purpose is to prove your worth by working harder and longer and for less than the value of your work, and never retire.

Many street level conservatives have hated Federal employees for years.  I've heard them complain about how they're all lazy as they didn't do the correct Protestant thing and choose to go into the rough and tumble of the free market, by which they mean the corporate controlled market.  

This is sometimes stated by people who actually depend on the government in spades themselves, and can't recognize it.  For instance, if you are truck driver, you are living on the government dole, Mr. Knight of the Road.  Fortunately, in this instance, truckers will soon be out of business as highway subsidies will end and railroads will take back over, which is a good thing.

More than one of the NC/Populist crowd who holds this view also abhor retirement.  The comments are out there, people just refuse to recognize it.   The push in this crowd, short term, is to raise retirement age to 69, but the real push will be just to do away with Social Security in the end. That neatly solves the Social Security crisis.

So, anyhow, like driving on Interstates?

Get used to your state funding them, and they won't.

Like safe air travel?

Notice how many air disasters there have already been since Trump took over, they're likely not his fault, but you probably ought to get used to that too.

Miss polluted air and water?

Well, it'll be back.

Come to expect the Federal government to be there if you are black, or Catholic, and can't get hired?

Well, lower your expectations.

Looking forward to retirement?

Forget it.

Injured and need assistance?

Well, you have your family to turn to.  Or the church.

Lose your job and need help?

Well, move in with your parents, or your children.

Miss the days when the Marine Corps was used to make sure American economic interests weren't harmed in Central America and around the world?

Well, you'll get to live out the nostalgia.

Like living in a country where the rich get richer, the poor get dead, and the middle class are on the verge of poverty?

Well, you'll get to.

Welcome back. . . to about 1900 really.

Trump achieves historically low approval rating.

Right out of the gate, more disapprove of Trump's job than approve, and he's only one week in.

This will get worse, and his administration will get worse. The economy will get worse.  The national behavior will get worse.

25th Amendment. . . 

Anything good?  Yes, only 4% are undecided.

Pandemic Part 10. A new paradigm?

 

February 17, 2022

The Center for Disease Control estimates that, taking the massive spread of Omicron around the country into account and the final relatively high vaccination rate in the country, 73% of the nation is now immune from the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2, i.e. COVID 19.

Nobody is really sure exactly what that means.  But it might mean that we're entering a phase where the virus doesn't disappear, but it's much less disruptive to society.

It's still the case, however, that it remains a danger for the unvaccinated.

March 1, 2022

Wyoming's public health emergency shall expire on March 14.

March 21, 2022

A new variant of Omicron has developed, which is about 30% more transmissible than the already more transmissible Omicron.  It's spiking in Europe and in Hong Kong has caused an outbreak with a massive death rate, mostly concentrated in the unvaccinated elderly.

China has reported its first deaths in many months.

According to experts, the world is about 50% through the probable course of the pandemic.

April 14, 2022

Over 1,000,000 Americans have now died from the COVID 19.

July 22, 2022

President Biden has COVID 19.

At this point, two members of our four member family also have, with one having had it quite recently and finding it awful, but being grateful accordingly for having been vaccinated.

A new, more traditional type of vaccine, has now been approved.

September 20, 2022

On 60 Minutes over the weekend, President Biden stated; "The pandemic is over. We still have a problem with COVID. We're still doing a lot of work on it. But the pandemic is over."  The HHS Secretary later confirmed that position.

Epidemiologically, it isn't over, but then neither is the plague's pandemic either.  The statement has been criticized, with 400 people per day dying of the disease, but by and large it reflects the mood of the public which has largely gone back to a new post Covid introduction, world in which COVID 19 is part of the background.

December 15, 2022

The new defense spending authorization includes a requirement that the Secretary of Defense rescind vaccination requirements for troops because, well because that's the idiotic sort of thing that politicians like to stick into bills.

All of the troops should be vaccinated.

December 24, 2022

China, which has not accepted western vaccines, reported 37,000,000 new vaccinations in a single day.

January 2, 2023

A new variant of Omicron, XBB.1.5, now makes up 40% of the new cases in the U.S.

And Covid is still killing.

January 20, 2023

Governor Gordon Tests Positive for COVID-19

CHEYENNE, Wyo. –  Governor Mark Gordon has received results of a COVID-19 test that showed he is positive for the virus. The Governor is experiencing only minor symptoms at this time and will continue working from home on behalf of Wyoming. 

March 1, 2023

The Washington Post broke a story that the Department of Energy issued a report believing, with "low confidence", that the SARS-CoV-2 virus originated in a Chinese lab.

A really good analysis of this story can be found here:  

Why Scientists, Lawmakers & Diplomats Care Where COVID Began

In actuality, the Biden Administration early on ordered governmental intelligence agencies to get to the bottom of the virus' origin.  Eight intelligence agencies were assigned to the tasks, two of which have concluded, but with confidence doubts, that the virus was natural in origin. Two, we know now, felt the opposite, with it already known since 2021 what the FBI felt, with "moderate confidence" that the origin was a Chinese lab.  Two just haven't reported.

None of this kept some from claiming that it's now proven that the virus originated in the lab.

FWIW, private scientists, as opposed to intelligence agencies, overwhelmingly feel that it originated due to animal transfer in the Wuhan market.

March 18, 2023

Recent evidence points to raccoon dogs at the Wuhan market as the source.

April 11, 2023

President Biden declared the COVID emergency to be over.

August 22, 2023

Declared over or not, two new strains are on the loose and a new booster should be available mid September.

April 12, 2024

The CDC has found there's no link between the COVID vaccines and cardiac arrest in young people.

Not that this is a surprise.

It'll make no difference in the anti-scientific atmosphere of the day. A society that can believe that legalizing marijuana, which is largely untested and wholly unregulated, and that Donald Trump won hte 2020 election, will still believe that the vaccine is risky, but cause it wishes to.

June 15, 2024

Reuters has revealed that during the height of the pandemic, the US ran an anti-vax campaign in the Philippines to try to undermine Chinese efforts there.

There's no excuse for that whatsoever.

November 18, 2024

Is it the flu or is it COVID? One at-home test can tell you

January 26, 2025

The Central Intelligence Agency revised its report on the origin of COVID reporting, with low confidence, that a Chinese laboratory is to blame.

This was a report that was completed during the Biden Administration and was just now released.  It's being released now is unfortunate, in that it comes during the Trump Interregnum which is packed with people who generally have a contempt for science, which this will slightly fuel if anyone notices it given all the distraction at the present time.  Most Scientists think the most likely hypothesis is that it circulated in bats, like many coronaviruses, before infecting another species.

Last prior installment:

Pandemic Part 9. Omicron becomes dominant

Sunday Morning Scene, part Pars Duo: Please, stop.

Next year with be a Jubilee Year in the Catholic Church. For some reason, the Church felt it needed a mascot for this.

This is what it came up with:

How does a 2,000 year old institution in possession of much of the Western World's great art, come up with something so juvenile, and indeed something that looks like its out of Pokemon?

In announcing this, Archbishop Rino Fisichella stated that the cartoon imagine, titled "Luce" (light in Italian) was inspired by the Church's "to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth."  This presents the classic problem of the elderly, now the Baby Boomers, recalling the desires of "youth" in terms of when they were fairly youthful themselves.  Indeed, in my mind it brings to mind attending the "Teen Life Mass", or whatever it was called, that used to be held on Sunday evenings.  I generally tried to avoid it, but when I did, you'd find a guitar band with bongos for the music, lead by a Boomer, and a bunch of aged Boomers who would sway and whatnot to the music.  

In contrast, if you hit some Masses with a lot of young people, you'd find young women, some down in their teens, wearing mantillas.

I'm pretty convinced that in 2024, with ready access to the Internet, and all the news that's on it, combined with all the sewage that's washed up with it, such as horrific political arguments, the revival of racism, far right and far left extremist, Hamas murder and rape of young people in Israel, an aged geezer in the Kremlin trying to revive the Soviet Union, and young women prostituting themselves on TikTok, a childish cartoon from the 1980s isn't really going to win hearts and minds.  Indeed, its even worse than the Comic Sans Serif font and 1970s vintage art that was officially used for the Synod on Synodality.  And it gives emotional support to the Orthodox who are looking for reasons not to come back into the Church, even if superficially. This sure doesn't look like something Saints Cyril and Methodius would have passed out.

I've long held, and have stated it here, that Western culture had experienced Post World War Two materialism and found it lacking, and that the generations that have come up in the wake of the Baby Boomers are struggling to through the cultural innovations of the 1960s and 1970s off.  We don't believe that "Greed is good" or that the Sexual Revolution was freeing. The problem is that so much was destroyed that recovering is hard, particularly when the aged hand remains on the tiller.  Often that aged hand reaches out with what it thinks the young want, not grasping what that is, and actually making things worse.

This cartoon is really bad.  Somebody should look around the Vatican and see if something serious might be available.  The young Catholics in blue jeans, the mantilla girls, and myself, will all be thankful.

Postscript

I'm hating this image slightly less after some Twitter person made some interesting riffs off of it, but I still don't like it.

Blog Mirror and Commentary: QC: Human Sexuality | January 17, 2024 and the destruction of reality.

Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.

Alexander Pope. An Essay on Criticism.

Evelyn Nesbit, model and archetypical Gibson Girl, 1903.

And indeed, I'm likely foolish for bringing up this topic.

Model in overalls . Photos by Alfred Eisenstaedt, 1944.  This is posted under the fair use and other exceptions.  Life, by 1943, was already posting some fairly revealing photographs on its cover, but there was a certain line that it did not really cross until 1953, when it photographed the full nudes of Marilyn Monroe prior to Playboy doing so, in an act calculated to save her career, as it was a respectable magazine.  The publication of nude Monroe's from the 1940s went, to use a modern term, "viral" both in Life and in Playboy showing something was afoot in the culture.  This photo above shows how much things were still viewed differently mid World War Two, with a very demure model demonstrating work pants.

This post actually serves to link in a video posted below, which probably isn't apparent due to all of the introductory photographs and text.  And that's because of all the commentary I've asserted along the way.  

If you do nothing else, watch or listen to the video.

This post might look like a surprising thing to have linked in here, but in actuality, it directly applies to the topic of this website, the same being changes over time.  Or, put another way, how did average people, more particularly average Americans, and more particularly still, average Wyomingites, look at things and experience things, as well as looked at things and experienced things.

This is an area in which views have changed radically, and Fr. Krupp's post really reveals that.

At some point, relatively early in this podcast, Fr. Krupp, quoting from Dr. Peter Craig, notes that what the Sexual Revolution did was subtract, not add, to sex, by taking out of it its fundamental reality, that being that it creates human beings.

That's a phenomenal observation.

And its correct. What the Sexual Revolution achieved was to completely divorce an elemental act from an existential reality, and in the process, it warped human understanding of it, and indeed infantilized it.  That in turn lead, ultimately, the childish individualist focus on our reproductive organs we have today, and a massive focus on sex that has nothing whatsoever to do with reproduction, or at least we think it doesn't.  It's been wholly destructive.

We've addressed that numerous times here in the past and if we have a quibble with the presentation, it would be a fairly minor one, maybe.  Fr. Krupp puts this in the context of artificial birth control, but the process, we feel, had started earlier in the last 1940s with the erroneous conclusions in the Kinsey treatise Sexual Behavior in the Human Mail, which was drawn from prisoners who were available as they had not been conscripted to fight in World War Two and who displayed a variety of deviances, including sexual, to start with. The report was a bit of a bomb thrown into society, which was followed up upon by Hugh Hefner's slick publication Playboy which portrayed all women as sterile and top heavy. Pharmaceuticals pushed things over the edge in the early 60s.

Lauren Bacall, 1943.

The point isn't that prurient interests didn't exist before that time. They very clearly did.  La Vie Parisienne was popular prior to World War Two for that very reason, and films, prior to the production code, were already experimenting with titillation by the 1920s.  But there was much, much less of this prior to 1948 than there was later, and going the other direction, prior to 1920, it would have been pretty rare to have been exposed to such things in average life at all.

Indeed, it's now well known, in spite of what the Kinsey report claimed, that men and women acted very conventionally through the 40s.  Most people, men and women, never had sex outside of marriage.   Things did occur, including "unplanned births" but they were treated much differently and not regarded as the norm.  Included in that, of course, was the knowledge that acting outside of marriage didn't keep things from occuring in the normal and conventional biological sense.

Given that, the normal male's view of the world, and for that matter the normal female's, was undoubtedly much different, and much less sexualized. Additionally, it would have been less deviant than even widely accepted deviances today, and much more grounded in biology.  That doesn't mean things didn't happen, but they happened a lot less, and people were more realistic about what the consequences of what they were doing were in every sense.

Something started to change in the 1940s, and perhaps the Kinsey book was a symptom of that rather than the cause, although its very hard to tell.  Indeed, as early as the 1920s the movie industry, before being reined in, made a very serious effort to sell through sex.  It was society that reacted at the time, showing how ingrained the moral culture was.  That really started to break down during the 1940s.  I've often wondered if the war itself was part of the reason why.

From Reddit, again posted under copyright exceptions.  This is definitely risque and its hard to imagine women doing in this in the 30s, and frankly its pretty hard to imagine them doing it in the 1940s, but here it is.   The Second World War was a massive bloodletting, even worse than the Frist, and to some extent to me it seems like it shattered moral conduct in all sorts of ways, although it took some time to play out.

Kinsey released his book in 1948, and like SLAM Marshall's book Men Under Fire, its conclusions were in fact flat out wrong.  Marshall's book impacted military training for decades and some still site it.  Kinsey's book is still respected even though it contains material that's demonstratively wrong.

By 1953 (in the midst of a new war in Korea) things had slipped far enough that Hugh Hefner was able to introduce a slick publication glorifying women who were portrayed as over endowed, oversexed, dumb, and sterile.  There were efforts to fight back, but they were losing efforts.

Cheesecake photograph of Marilyn Monroe (posted here under the fair use and commentary exceptions to copyright. This photograph must be from the late 1950s or the very early 1960s, which somewhat, but only somewhat, cuts against Fr. Krupp's argument, which is based on the works of Dr. Peter Craig and heavily tied to artificial birth control as the cause of the Sexual Revolution.  I think that's largely correct, but the breakdown had started earlier, as early in 1948 in my view, such that even before the introduction of contraceptive pharmaceuticals a divorce between the reality of sex and reproduction had set in, leading to the "toy" or plaything concept of women that we have today.

And then the pill came, at the same time a society revolution of sorts, concentrated in young people, started to spread around the globe.

We've lost a lot here. A massive amount.  And principal among them are our groundings in the existential, and reality.   And we're still slippping.

QC: Human Sexuality | January 17, 2024.

Related threads:

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

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