The 2024 Election, Part XIX. The Clerks say "M'eh" edition.

June 6, 2024

Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray informed County Clerks that they may not use drop boxes in the upcoming election:

The County Clerks in turn met yesterday and informed Gray, that yes they can:

The topic of drop boxes has figured prominently in far right wing conspiracy theories even though there's no evidence whatsoever that they were involved in corruption in the last U.S. election, and certainly did not in the Wyoming election.  Sec. Gray used 2000 Mules prominently in his campaign, which apparently focuses on them, with that film having been completely discredited.  The conservative company which distributed it recently pulled it and apologized for it.

Apparently, less than 10 Wyoming counties actually use drop boxes, but the clerks en masse rejected Gray's directive.  If he wants to actually enforce his view, he'll have to attempt to get a court order, which risks the embarrassing possibility of losing as well as making people mad that a state official is suing local clerks.  If he doesn't take legal action, however, he'll look politically emasculated.

June 12, 2024

A bunch of states held primaries yesterday.

Nancy Mace held off a Republican challenger in South Carolina.

Trump backed Kelly Armstrong won in North Dakota.

June 14, 2024

And if this election wasn't weird enough:

Cheyenne City Clerk Says Artificial Intelligence Candidate For Mayor Is OK For Election

 June 15, 2024

The Presidential election continues to get increasingly surreal.

Business executives who met with Trump recently, in some instances, came away a bit shocked by what is obvious. CBS reports that some:

“said that [Trump] was remarkably meandering, could not keep a straight thought [and] was all over the map,” 

D'uh.

That's been the case for quite a while, and it's really showing.   Consider this from last week:

I say, ‘What would happen if the boat sank from its weight and you’re in the boat and you have this tremendously powerful battery and the battery’s underwater, and there’s a shark that’s approximately 10 yards over there?’ By the way, a lot of shark attacks lately. Do you notice that? A lot of shark … I watched some guys justifying it today: ‘Well, they weren’t really that angry. They bit off the young lady’s leg because of the fact that they were not hungry, but they misunderstood who she was.’ These people are crazy.

Eh?

There's plenty of reason to be concerned that Trump is in some state of mental decline.  These statements are certainly alarming, to say the least.  At this point, moreover, it's being willfully blind to suggest that Joe Biden is mentally impaired and not suggest the same thing about Trump. 

Trump suggested last week that he'd look at replacing the income tax with tariffs.  That would throw the country into a Depression.

Senator John Barrasso of Wyoming, himself no spring chicken, was photographed amongst Trump's Senatorial acolytes last week, and then giving him a birthday cake.  Dr. Barrasso is just that, a physician, and there's no real reason to believe that he's a Trump fan, but that's the case for a lot of those photographed smiling at Trump, all of which is both sad and alarming.

June 17, 2024

A record-low number of Democrats will run for Wyoming’s Legislature this year

June 21, 2024

A Sixth Cent sales tax will be on the ballot in Natrona County.  

June 25, 2024

An article on Hageman's primary challenger in the GOP:

Democrat-turned-Republican challenges Wyoming’s Harriet Hageman for U.S. House seat

Helling has a less than zero chance of unseating Hageman.  What this item really reminded me of, however, is just how old these candidates are.  Helling is an old lawyer.  His bar admission date is 1981, which would make him about 70.  Hageman's is 1989, which I knew which would make her about 61, old by historical standards although apparently arguably middle-aged now.

Barrasso is 71.  Lummis is 69. John Hotz, who is running against Barrasso, has a bar admission date of 1978 which would make him about three years older than Helling.  Seemingly the only younger candidate in the GOP race this primary is Rasner.

This isn't a comment on any of their politics, but rather their age.  Helling is opposed to nuclear power, a very 1970ish view.  With old people, come old views, quite often, even if they're repackaged as new ones.

June 26, 2024

Boebert won the GOP primary in her new district in Colorado.

Democratic member of "the Squad" Jamaal Bowman lost his primary race in New York to moderate Democrat George Latimer.

June 27, 2024

Trump-endorsed Riverton Utah Mayor Trent Staggs lost the Republican primary to Representative John Curtis for the Senate seat being vacated by Mitt Romney. Trump-backed state Colorado GOP Chairman Dave Williams lost the primary to Jeff Crank. Trump's endorsed South Carolina 3rd Congressional District, candidate pastor Mark Burns, lost to nurse practitioner Sheri Biggs.

Trump endorsed Gabe Evans, defeated Janak Joshi for the Colorado's 8th Congressional District nomination.

Related threads:

Is anyone else reminded of the Simpson's?

Last prior edition:

The 2024 Election, Part XVIII. The list.

Roads to the Great War: Remembering a Veteran: Isaakii Solzhenitsyn, Russi...

Roads to the Great War: Remembering a Veteran: Isaakii Solzhenitsyn, Russi...: Isaakii Solzhenitsyn Isaakii Semyonovich Solzhenitsyn (11 June 1891–15 June 1918) was an officer in the Imperial Russian Army and the father...

Bookends

I probably should have guessed, but I didn't.

I'd never met him before, and couldn't even place him in the set of people related to people I knew.  He was, or is rather, the grandson of a rancher I've known for eons, but I'd never seen him at a rural gathering.  He was dressed in a rural fashion, with the clothes natural to him, but wearing a ball cap rather than a cowboy hat.  I probably was too.  It was unseasonably cold, I remember that.

He was holding forth boldly on what was wrong on higher education.  All the professors were radical leftist.  

I figured he was probably right out of high school, in part no doubt as I'm a very poor judge of younger ages.  It was silly, so I just ignored him, although I found his speech arrogant.  The sort of speech you hear from somebody who presumes that nobody else has experienced what you have. ¹  I.e., we were a bunch of rural rubes not familiar with the dangerous liberals in higher education.

I figured he'd probably get over it as he moved through education.  

Yes, there are liberals in higher education. Frankly, the more educated a class is, the more likely that it is at least somewhat liberal.  That reflects itself in our current political demographic.  The more higher education a person has, the more likely they are to vote for the Democrats.  It's not universally true, but it's fairly true. And the Republicans, having gone populist, which is by definition a political stream that simply flows the "wisdom of the people", is a pretty shallow stream.  Conservatism isn't, but it's really hard to find right now.

I heard earlier this year that he'd obtained a summer position in D.C. with one of our current public servants there, and thought that figured, given the climate of the times.  Recently, his grandfather told me he'd just taken the LSAT.  

I didn't quite know what to say.  

I didn't have any idea he was that old.  And I didn't realize that was his aspiration.  I asked his progenitor if being a lawyer was his goal, and was informed that it was.  I did stumble around to asking what his undergraduate major was, thinking that some have multiple doors to the future, and some do not.

"Political science".

"Well, he doesn't have any place else to go then".²

Not the most encouraging response, I'm sure.

I've known a few lawyers that were of the populist political thought variety, but very, very few.  Of the few, one is in office right now, but I didn't know that person had that view until that person ran.  One is a nice plaintiff's lawyer who holds those views, but it's not his defining characteristic, like it tends to be with some people, and he's friends with those who don't.  One briefly was in the public eye and has disappeared.

He's going to find that most law professors, if you know their views at all, and most you won't, aren't populists.  Some are probably conservatives, and most are liberals.  A defining characteristic of the Post GI Bill field of law is that it's institutionally left wing.  As I've often noted before, there are in fact liberal jurists, but there really aren't "conservative" jurists in the true sense, in spite of what people like Robert Reich might think.

I suspect politics is the ultimate goal. By the time he's through with law school, and has some practice under his belt, the populist wave will have broken, a conservative politics will have reemerged and liberals will be back in power.³

So I hope that he likes the practice of law, as that's what law school trains you to do.  Not to save the world.  Not to "help people".  Not to provide opportunities for people who "like to argue".⁴ 

I'm not holding out a lot of hope.

Recently, I ran this:

June 25, 2024

An article on Hageman's primary challenger in the GOP:

Democrat-turned-Republican challenges Wyoming’s Harriet Hageman for U.S. House seat

Helling has a less than zero chance of unseating Hageman.  What this item really reminded me of, however, is just how old these candidates are.  Helling is an old lawyer.  His bar admission date is 1981, which would make him about 70.  Hageman's is 1989, which I knew which would make her about 61, old by historical standards although apparently arguably middle-aged now.

Barrasso is 71.  Lummis is 69. John Hotz, who is running against Barrasso, has a bar admission date of 1978 which would make him about three years older than Helling.  Seemingly the only younger candidate in the GOP race this primary is Rasner.

This isn't a comment on any of their politics, but rather their age.  Helling is opposed to nuclear power, a very 1970ish view.  With old people, come old views, quite often, even if they're repackaged as new ones.

Right after I ran it, I went to a hearing where one of the opposing lawyers is approaching 70 and supposedly is getting ready to retire, but doesn't seem to be.  Right after that, I was in a court hearing in which there were two younger lawyers, but a host of ones in their late 60s or well into their 70s.  One of the late 60s ones appeared to be stunned and noted that there was at least 200 years of legal experience in the room.

I was noticing the same thing.

Lawyers have a problem and that's beginning to scare me, not quite yet being of retirement age.  I'm not sure if they don't retire, can't retire, don't think they can retire, or something else.

It's not really good for the profession, I'm sure of that.  While it's a really Un-American thing to say, a field being dominated in some ways by the elderly pushes out the young.  And it's also sad.

It's sad as it's usually the case that younger people have wide, genuine, interests.  Lawyers often, although not always, give a lot of those up early on to build their careers. Then they don't go back to them due to those careers.  By the time they're in their late 50s, some are burnt out husks that have nothing but the law, and others are just, I think, afraid to leave it.

I think that's, in part, why you see lawyers run for office.  Maybe some are like our young firebrand first mentioned in this tread.  But others are finding a refuge from a cul-de-sac.  A lawyer who is nearly 70 should not become a first time office holder, and shouldn't even delude themselves into thinking that's a good idea (or that it's feasible).  They should remind themselves of what interested them when they were in their 20s.  The same is true of office holders in general who are in their 70s, or older.  

Footnotes:

1.  I've often seen this with young veterans and old ones.  Some young veteran will be holding forth, not realizing that the guy listening to him fought at Khe Sanh or the likes.

2.  That wasn't the most politic thing to say, but I was sort of hoping that the answer was "agriculture" or something, that had some more doors out.  

Political science really doesn't.  Maybe teaching.  But if our young protagonist graduates with a law degree and finds himself not in the world of political intrigue making sure that the American version of Viktor Orbán rises to the top, but rather whether his client, the mother of five children by seven men gets one of them to pay child support, which is highly likely, he's going to have no place to go.

3.  Bold prediction, I know, but probably correct.

Right now, I suspect that Donald Trump will in fact win the Presidential election, and the country will be in for a massive period of turmoil.  By midterm, people who supported Trump will be howling with rage about the impact of tariffs and the like and demanding that something be done.  The correction will come in 2028, but by that time much of the damage, or resetting or whatever, will have been done.  The incoming 2028 Democratic regime will set the needle more back to the center.

4.  Being good at arguing, in a Socratic sense, makes you a good debator or speaker.  Liking to argue, however, just makes you an asshole.

Going Feral: Report dead wild rabbits to Game and Fish

Going Feral: Report dead wild rabbits to Game and Fish:   

Report dead wild rabbits to Game and Fish

 Report dead wild rabbits to Game and Fish

POSTED:

JULY 20, 2020

|

CHEYENNE REGION

NEWS

NEWS

Wyomingites are being asked to keep a lookout for dead rabbits in their yards, rural property and other outdoor areas. The Wyoming Game and Fish Department is collecting wild rabbit carcasses for Rabbit Hemorrhagic Disease Virus2 testing, known as RHDV2. While not found in Wyoming yet, the disease has been identified in neighboring states. Testing rabbits is key to monitoring the disease spread.

RHDV2 is a fatal disease of rabbits and hares. An estimated 35-50% of infected wild rabbits succumb to the disease.  

Samantha Allen, Game and Fish state wildlife veterinarian, said all of Wyoming’s rabbits and hares are susceptible — that includes game and nongame species like cottontail rabbits, jack rabbits and potentially, pygmy rabbits. Domestic rabbits are also at risk; however, other domestic pets and livestock are not at risk from the disease.

The first indication of RHDV2 infection in rabbits is dead animals.

“Any rabbit could become infected with the disease - so it could be a cottontail living in your yard or the one you see while hiking,” said Allen. “Please report any dead rabbits you find. Testing these carcasses is the only way to know if the disease is in Wyoming.”

The disease has been confirmed in California, Nevada, Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, Utah and Colorado. 

RHDV2 does not pose a threat to humans, but rabbits carry other diseases which can —  like tularemia and plague. The public is advised not to touch or pick up any dead wild rabbits. Rather, note the location and call the Game and Fish Wildlife Health Lab at (307) 745-5865 or the nearest regional office. Game and Fish personnel will evaluate the situation, and make plans to collect the rabbit.

June 26, 1944. Cherbourg surrenders.

The Germans surrendered at Cherbourg.

Karl-Wihelm Schlieben and Admiral Walter Hennecke at the surrender of Cherbourg.  In captivity, Schlieben remarkably noted regarding Dachau; “Everybody knew, happen that terrible things there – not what, but that terrible things happen because, knew each of us, even then 1935”.  Neither of these senior German officers reappeared in the German forces of the Budesrepublik in spite of their relative youth, which is interesting.

The British launched Operation Epsom to take Caen and seize Fontenay-le-Pesnel, Cheux and the airfield at Saint-Manvieux-Norrey.  Rommel orders SS units at Saint-Lô to disengage and to the aid of the 12th SS Panzer at Caen, but Allied air cover makes that impossible.

The Germans prevailed at the Battle of Osuchy against the Polish Home Army.

The Red Army kills or captures most of the German 53d Corps and also captured Orsha and Mogilev.  

Brigadier General Mike Calvert (left), Lieutenant-Colonel Shaw, with (right) Pakistani born Major James Lumley after the capture of Mogaung.  The General is armed with a SMLE and the Lt. Col. with a bayonet fixed SMLE.  The Major with a M1 Carbine.  Gen. Calvert is a particularly tragic figure. This battle was his most significant, and it was significant.  After the war, he began drinking heavily and was reassigned to a command in Germany.  In 1951, he was accused of improper sexual contact with three young German men, at a time at which that was fully illegal, and was court-martialed and convicted.  He never got back on his feet after that and maintained his innocence for the rest of his life.  Work by his biographer after his death indeed demonstrated that he was most likely innocent of what he had been accused of.

After 20 days of hard fighting, the Chindits, in the latter stages assisted by the Nationalist Chinese, took Mogaung in Burma.

The U.S. Navy bombarded Japanese positions on Matsuwa in the Kuriles.

The Republican National Convention opened in Chicago.

All three New York baseball team played at the Polo Grounds in a round-robin experiment to raise money for war bonds.

General Hap Arnold called Governor Lester Hunt and requested that UW President James Morill be given a leave of absence to assist with the War Education Program. (UW History Calendar).

The trustees refused the request.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, June 25, 1944. The Battle of Tali–Ihantala commences.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Battle of Tali–Ihantala, British Army, Caen France, Canadian Army, Diplomacy, Finnish Army, German SS, Operation Epsom, Operation Martlet, Operation Overlord, Red Army, Waffen SS, World War Two

Thursday, June 26, 1924. Nominating Al Smith.

 

The Coolidge family went to a baseball game.

Jesse Barnes.   Barnes battled left and pitched right.  He first played in major league ball in 1914, and last in 1927.  He died in 1961 at age 69.

In baseball, but not at this game, Jesse Barnes of the Boston Braves opposed Virgil Barnes of the New York Giants in the first brother vs. brother pitching duel. in major league baseball history. 

Virgil Barnes.   The younger of the two Barnes pitchers, he first played major league ball in 1919 and last in 1928.  He died in 1958 at age 61.

The Giants won.

Both brothers had been pitchers for the Giants at one time.

The United States and Bulgaria exchanged ratifications of an extradition treaty.

At the Democratic Convention, Franklin Roosevelt nominated Al Smith for the Democratic ticket.  

William McAdoo had been assumed to be the shoe in nominee in 1923, but things had begun to go off the rails.  It had been learned that he had accepted a $25,000 campaign contribution from oil tycoon Edward L. Doheny, who was associated with the Teapot Dome Scandal.  He returned it, but at the convention he received the support of the Ku Klux Klan and refused to reveal if he was a member or not.  He did not repudiate the Klan, which in turn caused Catholic support to evaporate.

Last prior edition:

Tuesday, June 24, 1924. The Democratic Convention opens.

Labels: 1920s, 1924, 1924 Election, Blog Mirror, Calvin Coolidge, Fascism, Florida, Italy, Newspapers

Monday, June 26, 1899. Birth of Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia.

Duchess Maria Nikolaevna of Russia (Maria Nikolaevna Romanova) born. She was the third child of Czar Nicholas II of Russia and Czarina Alexandra Feodorovna and was murdered with the rest of her family on July 17, 1918. She was 19 years old at the time.  She was canonized as a Passion Bearer by the Russian Orthodox Church as a result.

Of some interest, her parents were second cousins, and her mother, who was a Lutheran German, initially did not want to marry her father due to religious reasons. Her mother was ultimately persuaded to change her mind partially due to it being represented that she did not have to renounce Lutheranism in order to convert to Orthodoxy, although she ultimately became quite devout.

Last prior edition:

Sunday, June 25, 1899. The Great Wall of China Hoax.

Labels: 1890s, 1899, China, Denver, Myths, The Press

Blog Mirror: Kodak Instamatic Cameras, 1964

 

Kodak Instamatic Cameras, 1964

Sunday, June 25, 1944. The Battle of Tali–Ihantala commences.

The Battle of Tali–Ihantala, the largest battle ever fought by Nordic nations, commenced between Finland and the Soviet Union.

The battle followed a continued series of contacts between Finland and the USSR about Finland leaving the war.  On June 21 the Finish government asked for peace conditions.  The reply came on June 23 which demanded a signed statement from Finland that it was ready to surrender as a precondition for talks. The Finns rejected this.  The day prior to that, German Foreign Minister Ribbentrop demanded that Finland would promise that it would continue to fight as a precondition for ongoing military support, which Finland gave.  The Soviet offensive commenced today, even as recent events had shown that Finnish resistance to Red Army attacks was strengthening.

"Combat engineers kneel in prayer at a Sunday mass conducted by Chaplain (1st Lt.) Paul J. McGovern, Boston, Mass., former pastor of St. Mary's Catholic Church, Danvers, Mass. The first American cemetery to be constructed in France is in the center background." 

U.S. and Royal Navy ships bombarded shore fortifications at Cherbourg.

Operation Martlet, the initial stage of Operation Epsom, a British operation to take Caen, commenced.  60,000 Canadian and British troops  were involved in the assault against the 12th SS Panzer Hitlerjugend Division.

As a matter of pure trivia, the German Tiger tank in the movie Kelly's Heroes bears the insignia of the 12th SS Panzer Division.

The Battle of Osuchy began in Poland between German forces and the Polish resistance.

The U-269 was sunk off of Torquay by the HMS Bickerton.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, June 24, 1944. The sinking of the Derrycunihy.

Labels: Battle of the Atlantic, Belarus, boats and ships, Cherbourg France, German Wehrmacht, Operation Bagration, Operation Overlord, Red Army, Royal Navy, Saipan, United States Marine Corps, World War Two

Sunday, June 25, 1899. The Great Wall of China Hoax.

Four reporters in Denver concocted a tale about American businesses that had a contract to demolish the Great Wall of China to construct a road.  The reporters were Al Stevens, Jack Tournay, John Lewis, and Hal Wilshire, of the Post, the Republican, the Times, and the Rocky Mountain News.  The plot was hatched due to a chance meeting while hoping to catch a legitimate news story.  

The fable has proven to have been legs, and has occasionally been revived as a supposedly true story.

Last prior edition:

Wednesday, June 21, 1899. Treaty No. 8.

Labels: 1890s, 1899, Canada, First Nations, Native Americans, Western Canada

Thursday, June 25, 1874. Leaving for Adobe Walls.

A party of buffalo hunters left Dodge City, bound for the abandoned trading post of Adobe Walls in Texas.

Rose O'Neill, creator of Kewpies, was born.

Last prior edition:

Saturday, June 20, 1874. Life Savers

Labels: 1870s, 1874, Department of Homeland Safety, Department of the Treasury, Heroes, Personalities, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Life Saving Service

Saturday, June 24, 1944. The sinking of the Derrycunihy.

Soldiers awarded the Silver Star or Bronze Star on this day, for actions on June 6, 1944.  Notable in this photo is that quite a few of them are carrying M1 Carbines, not generally associated with combat troops in the U.S. Army, and all of them save for two are wearing M1941 field jackets.  One warm-blooded soldier is wearing just his wool shirt, with white t-shirt, and one is wearing a Winter Combat Jacket, commonly called (erroneously) a "tanker's jacket".  Nobody is wearing the new M1943 field jacket.

German acoustic mines sank the Derrycunihy off of Normandy, which had been laid by the Luftwaffe the night prior.  183 men of the 43d Wessex Reconnaissance Regiment went down with her. Twenty-five men of the crew also died.   

Hard fighting continued at Cherbourg.

The 1st Belorussian Front entered Operation Bagration with an assault aimed at Bobruisk. The Red Army's 1st Baltic Front and 3d Belorussian Front nearly encircled Viebsk as part of Operation Bagration leading Hitler to order all but one division of the German LIII Corps to break out, showing perhaps that he had wised up about leaving pockets of troops surrounded.  Red Army advances have been up to 25 miles.

The RCAF sank the U-1225 off of Bergen.

Progress is ongoing for the Army and Marines on Saipan.

The U.S. Navy again raided Iwo Jima and Chichi Jima, resulting in the Japanese losing 66 aircraft.

The Adelaide Mail revealed that one Ern Malley, a supposedly unknown dead (in 1943) poet who had been posthumously published, supposedly in the avant-garde Angry Penguins was a complete hoax meant to expose the vapidness of modernist style.

Last prior edition:

Friday, June 23, 1944. Bagration increases.

Labels: 1940s, 1944, Bougainville, Cherbourg France, Lithuania, Operation Bagration, Operation Overlord, Polish Home Army, Red Army, Saipan, War Crimes, World War Two