Today in World War II History—June 23, 1940 & 1945: June 23, 1945: In the last airborne assault of the war, paratroopers of the US 11th Airborne Division land near Aparri in northern Luzon.
The Gros Ventre landslide near Jackson occurred following heavy rains and a 4.0 magnitude earthquake. Approximately 38,000,000 m3 (1.3×109 cu ft) of sedimentary rock came down the Tetons, dammed a river, and created the Lower Slide Lake. The dam partially failed in 1927, wiping out Kelly.
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The Battle of Okinawa ended. It was the last major ground battle of World War Two.
Today in World War II History—June 22, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 22, 1945: Battle for Okinawa officially ends at a high cost—12,520 Americans and 110,000 Japanese were killed, plus 42,000 civilians.
June 22, 1945: The Battle of Okinawa
Operation Ten-Go, the last major Japanese naval operation, concluded.
Gen. MacArthur announced that Gen. Joseph Stilwell would replace Simon Bolivar Buckner, Jr. as commander of the U.S. Tenth Army.
Emperor Hirohito directed his government to find a way to peace talks.
Japanese generals Isamu Chō, 50, and Mitsuru Ushijima, 57, committed suicide on Okinawa.
The Japanese withdrew from Liuchow.
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The best posts of the week of June 15, 2025, a week dominated by the news on the reprehensible inclusion of public land sales in the budget reconciliation bill.
Back at least a decade ago I had a conversation with a high ranking member of the Wyoming Republican Party about some really odd going ons down at Cheyenne. He stated, broken hearted, that Wyoming politicians had been "bought".
That's a pretty broad accusation. What he likely really meant is that right about that time the state started to be flooded by out of state political money, and it often went right into the most radical right wing politicians. Wealthy people moving into the state brought their politics with them, and in a few cases if was radically far right. That gave us, for example, the absurd example of Foster Friess and his goofball Dukes of Hazzard campaign for governor.
It also gave us, however, some people who moved in specifically for political reason. Chuck Gray, the family money backed son of a wealthy Republican, who was born in California and went to school at Wharton, like Trump, moved into the state and ran for office nearly immediately. Living in a district in which the long time occupant of a legislative seat died, he managed to leverage a position at his father's radio station into a legislative seat, and then captured the office of the Secretary of State in spite of having very little connection with the state in which he sits. He's been a constant stream of Trump like invective. His seat was taken over by Jeanette Ward, who was if anything even further to the far right. Ward, from Illinois, came to Wyoming as a "political refugee" and had been here so briefly that she barely qualified for her seat when she ran. Her politics were too far to the right for even that district, which booted her after one embarrassing term in Cheyenne where she espoused far right populist, far right Evangelical, positions.
The state GOP was likewise taken over by far right populists, about whom we hear less now, but who went to war with the traditional GOP. They were largely successful, duping, although I expect only temporarily, a large number of Wyoming voters into believing the sh** sandwiches which Trump and his allies serve up as alleged filet mignon.
That they can be duped is because the state is in economic distress, and regular people don't know what to do about it. Global Warming is real, not some sort of fib, and long term coal and oil are doomed. A large number of workers who relocated form Texas and Oklahoma, and the like, are fairly poorly educated on top of it and are relatively easy to lead by being told that what they want to be true, is true. The agricultural sector, which has deeply ingrained conservative tendencies, is rolling over from a generation that basically stopped its education at high school to one which is now college educated, but in the meantime the older agriculturalist who control the operations deeply want to believe that operations can be run the way they were in the 1970s, and that threats they need to deal with, which include Global Warming and the buying power of the Super Rich, really don't.
Basically, Wyoming's current politics can be explained by people voting for what they want to believe, over reality. Coal and oil are never going way. You'll always be able to get a job in the extractive industries, or as a truck driver, with a high school diploma, or even without one. There are no deep existential problems with the economy here that aren't the result of a conspiracy against us.
It can't be us.
But it can be.
And right now, it is.
A further part of the problem, however, is that the Democratic Party in the state has displayed a level of intellectual denseness that would suck light out of a black hole It's stunning.
It wasn't all that time that Wyoming had a viable Democratic Party that could serious contend for statewide and national seats. That started to change, however, during the Clinton Administration for reasons that are now hard to discern, although the decline of unionized mining jobs in Wyoming are likely part of that problem. Even after that, however, we had a Democratic Governor.
As the Democratic Party in the state declined it took on a lot of the same trend lines that the national Democratic Party did, which has helped explain the rise of Trump. In a state that was both sort of conservative and sort of libertarian, they became goofball left wing as an organization, although not all of their candidates reflected that. Over time, the Democrats never saw a fetus in the womb that they didn't' want to kill, or a brand new perversion that they didn't want to celebrate. A party which at one time was lead by burly miners or grumpy rural lawyers is now lead by a guy who has the appearance of a bow tie wearing nerd.
In fairness, however, the last two chairmen of the Wyoming GOP don't win high marks either. The current one, Bryan Miller, is another of the "I spent my life in the military and hate the government" Republicans. After decades of drawing on the government tit, they claim to know what's wrong in a state where most people don't, or at least not openly.
We may, just might, be at a turning point, however.
We are certainly at a point where Republican office holders ignoring the real views of the state can be exploited.
Wyomingites are overwhelmingly opposed to public lands being transferred out of government control. In spite of that, Dr. John Barrasso supported Federal lands being transferred to the states in the 2016 GOP platform. That didn't happen in part because Eric Trump is a hunter. Barrasso darned well knew that Wyomingites didn't support that, but somebody he was listening to did, as he supported it against the wishes of his constituents.
72 year old Barrasso is in that class of politicians who desperately seem to want to hang on to their jobs in spite of their advancing old age. At 72 he ought to be retired, but he hung on and is how the Senate Whip. Once a Republican moderate, he became a Trumpite by necessity. That means he could become a moderate again, and if the political winds shifted, he would.
This issue is one in which he's hearing from hundreds of Wyomingites per day. He's heard from me twice.
He hasn't responded, but he hasn't said what his position is.
If the proposals to transfer public lands advance, he ought to be sent packing.
70 year old Cynthia Lummis is likewise in the age group that ought to be out of politics. She actually returned to it, however, to take her current Senate seat. Lummis condescendingly stated that all Federal lands didn't need to remain in Federal lands forever, which is intellectually the same as maintaining that all privately held lands don't either, something she'd be in horror about as she comes from a ranching family. She's also shown an ability to tack into the wind, however, as she was once a Trump opponent and now is a Trump backer.
Lummis is making sort of a big deal right now about her cryptocurrency bill which just passed the Senate, and nickname Crypto Queen she's been tagged with. The truth is, however, that the overwhelming majority of Wyomingites don't give a rusty rats ass about this topic and aren't going to remember diddly squat about this bill. It'll soon be a "what?" sort of topic.
The public lands vote, however won't be.
Harriet Hageman is on her first time as Congresswoman, having been able to take advantage of her former friend Liz Cheney's downfall. Hageman is the only one of Wyoming's Washington delegation who probably comes by her public land vote, which was in favor of the Federal sales bill, honestly. Daughter of Jim Hageman, who spent 23 years in the Wyoming House of Representatives, Hageman is from a farming family from Southeastern Wyoming where there is very little public land. Jim Hageman was one of the backers of a proposal to allow for the privatization of wildlife in Wyoming, which almost destroyed the GOP during its go around.
This issue could be a similar one.
Wyomingites should make it.
At the top of this page is a portrait of Francis E. Warren. Warren had been territorial governor, and then the first governor, of the State of Wyoming.
I don't admire him.
But his ability to read the political winds is admirable.
The state Republican Party was complicit in the invasion as so many of those in it were connected with Republican politics. Planned at the Cheyenne Club, people kne what was going on. Republican Governor Amos Barber did and had arranged to activate the National Guard in order to keep it from being deployed to Central Wyoming to stop the invasion.
Barber lost his seat following the event.
The Republicans lost the legislature.
Warren kept his.
There's a lesson there for those currently in office. . . and those who wish to be.
Nguyen Ai Quoc (Ho Chi Minh) founded the Vietnamese Revolutionary Youth League (Việt Nam Thanh niên Cách mệnh Đồng chí Hội; chữ Hán: 越南青年革命同志會) in Guangzhou, China. It was Vietnam's first Communist organization and had the support of the Chinese Communist Party and the Kuomintang.
It'd dissolve due to internal splits in 1929.
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Today in World War II History—June 21, 1940 & 1945: 80 Years Ago—June 21, 1945: US Rangers link with Filipino guerrillas in Aparri, Luzon. US Tenth Army takes Hill 89, the last Japanese stronghold on Okinawa.
Sarah Sundin's blog.
The USS Barry was sunk off of Okinawa by kamikazes.
The Battle of Tarakan ended in an Allied victory on Borneo.
Twelve Polish Home Army officers were convicted of "underground activities" by the USSR.
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Wyoming legislators begin to weigh in, with lukewarm Republicans, some man Republicans, and an absolute no from the Democrats.
Democrats do have an opportunity here, I might add. One long time and very conservative Republican I know is re-registering in the Democratic Party.
One Republican who is predictably all in, is Harriet Hageman.
The "silly" reaction sparked some rage on facebook. My prediction is that this is the end of Hageman's political career in Wyoming.
Today in World War II History—June 20, 1940 & 1945: Australians take oil fields at Seria on Borneo.
Hard fighting continues on Okinawa, but 1,000 Japanese troops surrendered.
Australians landed at Lutong in eastern Sarawak, Borneo.
The Australian 26th Infantry Brigade captured Hill 90 on Tarakan Island, ending organized Japanese resistance.
The Polish government in exile denies the right of the Soviets to try Polish ministers who had flown to Moscow and were arrested.
The United Nations agreed to let the General Assembly have the right to discuss "any matters within the scope of the charter".
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Benito Mussolini launched "The Battle for Grain" ("La battaglia del grano"), aimed at increasing Italy's wheat production to the point of becoming completely self-sufficient.
FWIW, today Italy uses a lot of Ukrainian wheat.
Audie Murphy was born into a sharecropping family in Hunt County, Texas. He'd grow up under difficult conditions, learning to hunt in order to help feed his large family, and leaving school to pick cotton in fifth grade.
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I don't think a person really needs to worry about it, but an interesting article.
I don’t yield to pressure only higher principle. I have said from day one I would not support a bill that sells public lands. I am still a no on the senate reconciliation bill that sells public lands. We did our job in the House. Let’s get it finished.
Ryan Zinke
Zinke's listening to his state. Why isn't Wyoming's delegation doing the same?
Everywhere I go I'm asked if I think the university stifles writers. My opinion is that they don't stifle enough of them. There's many a best-seller that could have been prevented by a good teacher.
Flannery O'Connor
