Last edition:
Friday, June 13, 2025
Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 6. “Rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly, and as quickly, as President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs.”
Rarely has an economic policy been repudiated as soundly, and as quickly, as President Trump’s Liberation Day tariffs.
The Wall Street Journal, May 13, 2025.
May 14, 2025
Wyoming Delegation Not Supportive Of Trump's Idea Of Tax Hike For The Rich
So Barrasso and Lummis separate from Trump on this?
Neither one of them are actually Trump supporters in terms of their personal beliefs, but have adopted his views for political survival in Wyoming, which is fanatically pro Trump. Everyone is well aware that the budget is in a crisis stage and at some point soon the US needs to have a balanced budget. That can only be done through raising taxes, and they know it.
Additionally, taxing the wealthy will not hurt the economy, and everyone knows that. Tax rates for the wealthy were much higher in prior decades with no ill effect on the economy.
A matter of critical interest.
Wyoming Is The Second Most Expensive State For Beer Lovers
And one Wyomingites just won't believe
Reaction To Trump Tariffs Helps Push Wyoming Oil Prices To Four-Year Low
This is an absolute fact, but if you follow the story on Facebook, a lot of Wyomingites just won't believe it. That would mean Trump is hurting the local economy, and they can't accept that. . . at least not yet.
Oil is at $62.02/bbl this morning.
May 15, 2025
Given the magnitude of the tariffs, even at the reduced levels announced this week, we aren’t able to absorb all the pressure given the reality of narrow retail margins.
Walmart CEO Doug McMillon.
Oil is at $61.60/bbl.
May 17, 2025
Thanks to Republican mishandling of the economy, specifically increasing debt, Moody's downgraded the economy from Aaa to Aa1.
The GOP can't seem to grasp that you actually have to pay for the government.
New Jersey transit engineers are on strike.
Trump's "Big Beautiful Budget Bill", which would add $4T in debt, failed 16-21 in the House Budget Committee.
The irony is that those voting against it want more spending cuts, but only increased taxes will address this developing crisis.
Let's put this in bold, as people just don't seem to grasp it.
THE UNITED STATES CAN'T "CUT" ITS WAY OUT OF ITS BUDGET CRISIS. IT MUST RAISE TAXES.
Cont:
It's really time to stop calling Trump a businessman:
He's a real estate developer. Clearly he's otherwise a business illiterate.
May 19, 2025
The Trump deficit expanding budget bill made it out of committee on a 17-16 vote with those who were to vote no, voting present.
This bill will be a disaster for already an already irresponsible Federal government. Taxes need to be raised on income, particularly upper incomes to make the budget balance and this insanity cease.
May 22, 2025
The House of Representatives passed by a margin of one a funding bill that will swell the deficit disastrously while making cuts in Medicaid and food stamp while adding to border security. Taxes will be cut, when they should be raised, and will irrationally be eliminated on tips and overtime.
Trump, who speaks oddly at best, has called this his "big beautiful tax bill"
Walmart is cutting 1,500 corporate jobs.
The stock market is crashing because of the bad tax bill. The bond market is flat.
West Texas crude is back down to $60.96.
Cont:
The "tip" exemption appears to be for "cash tips".
FWIW, bar tenders tend to get cash tips, but restaurant workers less and less. FWIW, cash tips are notoriously underreported anyway, as they're impossible to keep track of.
May 23, 2025
Hageman’s Budget Vote Critical As House Passes One Big Beautiful Act 215-214
The next one is interesting:
Republicans are for state's rights, except when the state exercises the right to do something they don't like.
Likewise, the GOP is for local control, but really isn't.
At Lusk Town Meeting, Locals Say Wind Projects Have Ended Friendships
Developer Of Controversial Casper Gravel Mine Wants To Renew State Leases
Trump:
What does the "thank you for our attention to this matter" intend to do?
May 29, 2025
Federal trade court blocks Trump's emergency tariffs, saying he overstepped authority
That the power wasn't there was obvious. Now the question is whether the Trump administration will obey the Court.
May 30, 2025
An appeals court is allowing the tariffs to be collected while the matter is on appeal, which is a poor ruling.
June 2, 2025
Well, of course. . .
R&D job postings down 18% since president took office
From the same article, about the impact on the economy:
A 25% cut ultimately would reduce gross domestic product by an amount similar to the decline seen during the Great Recession, they said.
cont:
“Was it all bullshit?"
Donald Trump, reportedly, about Musk's promise to cut $1B from the government spending.
That anyone could seriously think that $1B could be cut from the discretionary budget demonstrates that the person has no grasp on the Federal budget whatsoever.
June 3, 2025
Elon Musk on the "Big Beautiful Bill".
It is an abomination, but so was the work that Musk was doing:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist 85th Edition. DOGE dipshittery and Clinton efficiency.
June 4, 2025
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Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 5. The Roller Coaster Edition.
Thursday, June 12, 2025
Going Feral: New provision in Senate budget bill could put Wyoming public lands up for sale.
Going Feral: Going Feral: New provision in Senate budget bill c...:
Going Feral: New provision in Senate budget bill could put Wyoming public lands up for sale.
Going Feral: New provision in Senate budget bill could put Wyom...: New provision in Senate budget bill could put Wyoming public lands up for sale : Land sales would raise federal revenue and open up parcels ...
Frankly, for Wyomingites in general, and more specifically for the users of public lands (hunters, fishermen, outdoor recreationist, ranchers), this ought to be it in regard to political support.
If anyone of our three Congressional reps vote for this, they shouldn't receive our votes after this.
Thursday, June 12, 1975. Searching for the meaning of Vietnam.
The New York Review of Books ran an issue on The Meaning of Vietnam.
The disaster of no fault divorce spread to Australia with the Family Law Act 1975.
Last edition:
Wednesday, June 11, 1975. North Sea Oil. Reeducation. Gas Tax Rejection. MKUltra.
Labels: 1970s, 1975, Army of the Republic of Vietnam, Central Intelligence Agency, Gerald Ford, MKUltra, North Sea, Petroleum, The Cold War, United Kingdom, Vietnam, Vietnam War
Tuesday, June 12, 1945. The suicide of the Japanese Marines.
Today in World War II History—June 12, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 12, 1945: US Marines make push for final pocket of Japanese forces on Okinawa; hundreds of Japanese Marines commit suicide.
Sarah Sundin's blog.
On Okinawa, US troops took the Yaeju Dake escarpment.
Allied forces occupied Trieste.
Dwight D. Eisenhower received the Freedom of the City of London and the Order of Merit. In receiving them, he stated:
Humility must always be the portion of any man who receives acclaim earned in blood of his followers and sacrifices of his friends.
The Visayan Islands, including Samar, Negros, Panay, Leyte, Cebu, and Bohol, between Luzon and Mindanao, were secured by American forces.
Penn Station, June 12, 1945.
Niecey Brown, a 74-year-old Black woman, died from injuries after an off-duty white police officer forcibly entered her house and beat her with a bottle in Selma, Alabama.
Last edition:
Monday, June 11, 1945. King gets another term. . . but it's a minority government.
Labels: 1940s, 1945, Army, Canada, China, Conscientious Objectors, Court, Imperial Japanese Army, Marine co, Okinawa, William Lyon Mackenzie King, World War Two
New provision in Senate budget bill could put Wyoming public lands up for sale
New provision in Senate budget bill could put Wyoming public lands up for sale: Land sales would raise federal revenue and open up parcels for housing, according to Utah senator’s plan. But critics say it would result in the loss of lands now used for hunting and outdoor recreation.
Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition Postscript. Adding to what we already noted in a predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles.
So we posted:
Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A pred...: Pretty effective 1970s vintage Army recruiting poster seeking female recruits. There's been some interesting signs of things to come rec...
And then there was this speech:
HEGSETH: We're not interested in your woke garbage and your political correctness
FORT BRAGG TROOPS: *Yeahhhh!*
I'm pretty sure that my predictions are coming rapidly.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.
Wednesday, June 11, 2025
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 89th Edition. Sidewalks and flags.
An interesting episode in Evansville:
‘This is awesome’: Casper organizes to cover up swastika display in Evansville
And an episode all played out against the background of the state's GOP going increasingly to the very far right.
I'll note that this is "Pride Month". As I've noted before, I don't really get pride month for a bunch of reasons, one simple one being I don't see how a person can be "proud" of their sexual drive. That just seems odd to me. My views on the topic are found in the related thread links below, and a person can read them if they're interested.
I'm also kind of in the camp of the months just being the months, although I do see why Black History Month and Women's History Month got started to focus attention.
Anyhow, over time, Prime Month, which originally was limited to homosexuality, expanded out to LGBTQ, and that's another topic. L G & Q are related topics, but T is really a seperate one entirely, a fact that has caused some Ls to be upset by being included with Ts, and understandably so.
Anyhow, that's the topic of the post.
As noted, this is Pride Month and the Mayor of Evansville, on her own volition, put out small rainbow flags at the Evansville Town Hall. She noted that it represented a municipal spirit of acceptedness, although it was not a municipal act. It was a private one.
This shows something really interesting in general. For native Wyomingites, the view towards LGBTQ topics long was "I don't care what you do, just leave me alone". That's the native Wyoming view on a lot of things.
For this reason, for decades, locals in this community would find themselves in the grocery store line with a man wearing a tutu (I'm sincere on this), and think, "um. . .whatever". Or in my case, "um. . . poor taste in dresses".
The current right wing populist view, however, is very much "I care exactly what you are doing and I'm going to force you to stop doing it".
For locals, therefore, this entire topic has been a bit odd. There's been the movement towards "you must accept", which is generally met with "What? I wasn't bothering you" while also being met with "you must stop them", which has been met with "Why? They weren't bothering me".
Anyhow, the mayor put out flags.
This was, in turn, met with the actions of one Evansville resident who went out and drew swastikas on the sidewalk in protest. In addition, he threatened to purchase German swastika flags and put them out.
Why swastikas?
Well, nobody can really figure that one out. Asked about it in a town work session, he replied:
Yeah, there’s a difference. I’m not that stupid, but what I’m doing here is to make a point.
And what is that point?
Hard to figure.
Anyhow, Evansville residents reacted by having a sidewalk chalk fest. Seems about the best possible reaction, really.
A lesson here is that street level Wyoming isn't nearly as far right as GOP. At some point, that probably begins to have an effect.
Another lesson may very well be that the center needle on this has moved on, giving us an example of Yeoman's Twenty First Law of Behavior for the second time in two days. If that's the case, social conservatives will have a pretty hard time actually moving things back to where they want, as that requires a cultural change, and that change may have already taken place in the opposite direction.
Somewhat related, Wyoming's lone Congressman is backing a bill in Congress to change Pride Month (and I don't know how it ended up being called that) to "Family Month". A Hageman Facebook post stated:
This June, I am proud to cosponsor Rep. Mary Miller's resolution to officially declare June as Family Month.
It is time to reject radical ideologies and honor traditional family values that have shaped our country for generations.
A press release said something similar.
Some Facebook wag posted in reply:
Where's your Hageman family picture?
Whoever posted that was probably well aware that Ms. Hageman goes by her maiden name, under which her legal career was established prior to her marriage, and not the last name of her husband. More significantly, she has no children.
I've always wondered if somebody would start to take notice of this. As a far right Republican, Hageman ran on family values but, with no children of her own, made reference to her nephews and nieces, which aren't ballpark close to you own children.
Now, women don't have children for a lot of reasons. Some can't, for various biological reasons. Sometimes their spouse is sterile, either due to biological reasons or surgical mutilation. Lots of times, however, children were simply avoided, a species of tragedy, frankly, for those who have had children and grasp how they complete your lives, and make you into a real adult.
In polite society, you don't ask, however.
But American polite society is nearly a t hing of the past anymore, and here maybe there's a point to raising it. Amongst the things the far right of the GOP has embraced is pronatalism.
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Pronatalism is a philosophy that is based on the concept that (married) couples ought to have a lot of children. Frankly the general thesis of it is that "our" culture is dying and we need to combat it by having children. The concept has actually been around for a very long time and is sometimes associated with the phrase "the battle of the cradle" and the concept of "race suicide". No less of President than Theodore Roosevelt advocated the idea, stating that a man or woman who was childless by choice "merits contempt."
Which is I guess why the question is fair game in regard to the Congresswoman. I'm not suggesting that she has avoided children by choice (I don't know), and even if she had, I wouldn't suggest that, therefore causes her to "merit contempt" However, ff you raise the topic, well then. . . questions can logically follow.
The current GOP has become so focused on this that its floated the idea of a baby bonus, something that hasn't been paid in a Western nation for years and which has never been done in the U.S. The proposal was to pay parents of newborns $1,000, which is just about the cost of one week of Huggies. It's a stupid idea.
From the perspective of Catholics, however, this is a lot of fish on Fridays' during Lent. You find people adopting something sort of generally associated with you, in this case children in marriage, but for oddball secular reasons, and as if the concept is brand new. Catholics don't have children in marriage as a part of a race war. Indeed, Catholics don't really recognize the validity of the concept of "race" at all, which is pretty plain if you go to a Mass in any metropolitan area of more than 10,000 people. By the same token, we don't eat fish on Fridays during Lent (or in many cases, the rest of the year) as we've adopted the Mediterranean Diet or something.
This does bring up this, however. If you want a lot more children, you could take on the topic of pharmaceutical birth control.
Oh my.
There's been some fears, I might note, that the current set of populists would do just that. It's quite clear that some in the National Conservative/Christian Nationalist camp, would do that if they could.
Anyhow, sidewalk chalk over the top of swastikas was a good end to an odd story.
Related threads:
On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compelling opinions.
Lex Anteinternet: Pride and Unintended Consequences and the really unknowable views of Donald Trump.
Last edition:
Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.
Labels: Christian Nationalism, Military, National Conservatism, Pete Hegseth, Predictions, The Madness of King Donald, The relationship between men and women, The roles of men and women, transgenderism, You heard it here first, Pete Hegseth,2026 Election, 2028 Election, Christianity, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Kent State Incident, Mormon, Populism, Protestant, religion, Synchronicity, trends, University of Wyoming, Yeoman's twenty-first law of behavior
Wednesday, June 11, 1975. North Sea Oil. Reeducation. Gas Tax Rejection. MKUltra.
The United Kingdom became an oil producing nation as the first oil was produced in the North Sea's Argyll field.
The U.S House of Representatives voted 209 to 187 to reject President Ford's proposal for a .23 per gallon federal fuel tax Ford saw as a way of ending US dependency on imported oil by 1985.
Alice Olson, the widow of Frank Olson, learned for the first time that her husband had been the subject of secret CIA experiments with the hallucinogenic drug LSD as part of the illegal clandestine program MKUltra. Olson had leaped to his death in 1953. The CIA was hoping to find drugs that could be used for interrogation purposes.
Vietnam sent an order to all "puppet soldiers" of Army of the Republic of Vietnam to attend three days of "re-education" (hoc tap), and for former officers to bring supplies for one month of training. Most officers who reported were held for more than one month.
Last edition:
Tuesday, June 10, 1975. Refugees.
Labels: 1770s, 1775, 1970s, 1975, Army, baseball, Disaster, Gerald Ford, It was because of the Vietnam War, Jazz, Music, Refugees, Vietnamese Diaspora, Weapons
Monday, June 11, 1945. King gets another term. . . but it's a minority government.
A Canadian federal election was held in which the incumbent Liberal Party led by Prime Minister William Lyon Mackenzie King was re-elected to its third consecutive mandate, but this time through a minority government.
It was likely a sign of things to come in the upcoming British election.
US forces captured the height east of Mount Yaeju on Okinawa but an accompanying Marine assault failed to capture Kunishi Ridge.
Japanese forces recaptured Ishan in Kwangsi Province.
The U.S. Supreme Court decided In re Summers, ruling 5-4 that the First and Fourteenth Amendment freedoms of a conscientious objector were not infringed when a state bar association declined to admit him to the practice of law, which seems obviously wrong.
The Soviets began the expulsion of Sudetenlanders from Czechoslovakia.
Last edition:
Sunday, June 10, 1945. Action in the Far East.
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