July 6, 2025
I started drafting this, barely, as the Big Ugly started its final set of debates in the Senate. As I did that, this came out Musk broke, for the second time, with Trump, and claimed he'd form a new party if the Big Ugly passed.
Well, good for him.
I'm not posting this a a cheerleader for Musk. Musk is very much part of what's wrong with the United States. He's a poster child for what occurs in a country where has unrestrained capitalism. His caring about people claim can be doubted. The largest donor to the 2022 election, and the former Gauleiter of DOGE, there's no reason to trust that his view of what the nation's politics ought to look like comport with an actual decent set of political beliefs.
But this does symbolize something I'd noted at the time.
The 2026 election has begun.It'll interesting to see how this pays out.
Lummis is up for reelection, assuming she runs, and she will. She'll blame the Democrats for anything that goes wrong, and talk about being the Cyberqueen.
If she faces a solid challenger, after the Public Lands vote, she'll be in trouble.
The House seat is also up. Hageman won't run for that however, she's going to run for Governor. She's going to lose that.
Chuck Gray is going to run for the House, and he'll lose that.
Times are changing. Whether or not The Big Ugly passes, Trump has shot his bolt. True acolytes can wear "Trump was right about everything" truckers caps, but the opposite is proving to be true.
And this is about to get a lot worse for the GOP.
cont:
And now Nebraska's Don Bacon. The Congressman is in a district that's becoming increasingly Democratic, and my guess is it likely now will be a Democratic seat. The Republicans only hold a seven seat majority right now, which will be reduced to a five seat majority once the Democrats fill two vacant seats. Even assuming the Republicans hold every seat they currently have with out Bacon, that would reduce them to a four seat majority.
But they won't hold every seat. The House will flip.
cont:
Even Elon suddenly woke up.
At the time I posted that, I noted the departure of Don Bacon from the candidate rolls for the next election. Now, Tennessee's Mark Green has outright left. The GOP held 220 seats and the Democrats 213, but two of the unfilled seats will go to Democrats once vacant seats are replaced, reducing the pre Big Ugly margin to 220 to 215. With Green actually now gone, that's 219 to 215.
The House will return to the Democrats in the 2026 election.
By that time, it's my guess that the utility of Donald Trump will be gone, and the utility of being shocked that he has dementia will set in.
J.D. Vance will be President by then, with the NatCons hoping that he isn't tainted by anything that went wrong under Trump. Without Vance, nothing that's happened so far will last very long.
What will occur in the Wyoming midterm, which will address in another post on a somewhat separate theme will be really interesting. There's a good chance that Hageman and Lummis won't survive the midterms and that Gray will be defeated in his effort to climb the next rung of the latter, a sign that he'll he'll soon leave the state entirely, it no longer serving any purpose for him.
July 10, 2025
Interesting article pointing out that Musk's third party effort is a long shot, but still has a shot.
Already, I'd note, the one thing the Democrats and the GOP are agreeing on right now is that you must not vote for any new Musk party.
Not that I would. The values that the South African Mass Sperm Donor Billionaire hold are very far from mine. DOGE was stupid beyond belief. And frankly, I don't think that the Federal Government needed to be smaller in the first place, and that the common belief that it does is simply a "common sense" bromide that people believe because they believe it. But he is right about the looming budget crisis. I'd fix that much differently than Musk would.
But I don't think his party, should he form it, can necessarily be discounted. By next election the declining Trump, will sound more and more like mush. Trump already often sounds like this:
Or this:
The room to take Trump on is increasing, and the question is how much the NatCons really want to invest in a bowl of oatmeal as a figurehead. That could prove to be a bad strategy.
One thing I'll note is that I have a thread I haven't posted yet pondering a sort of Wyoming Party. I should have finished it as I could sort have been to this topic first.
And Musk certainly has the cash to get his views out. As he does that, the GOP will spend a lot of cashing yelling "don't listen to the right wing nut!"
Of course, the Democrats will agree with the Republicans on that, as not voting for a third party is the one thing they agree on. . . which is ironically one of the things that an American Party could point to as a reason to vote for it.
I'd also note that if an American Party was intelligent, which there's big reason to doubt that it would be, and carved off some of the real conservative topics from the GOP, and was actually fiscally conservative, it might appeal more broadly than the GOP suspects.
In more local news, former primary candidate Reid Rasner, who ran to the right of John Barrasso, and who forced Barrasso to run to the right of himself, has filed a lawsuit in the 2nd Judicial District against far right former state senator Anthony Bouchard for defamation.
July 10, 2025, cont.
So, the news on Ranser and Bouchard seems more clear. Rasner claims that Bouchard ruined a major economic deal he was working on to buy TikTok by emphasizing that Rasner is a homosexual, which Rasner does not deny. Bouchard had a sexual scandal of his own that came to light earlier on, which, the way I typed it out, would seem to suggest that Rasner's being a homosexual is a scandal, which he doesn't deny (his orientation) in his lawsuit.
Bouchard dropped out of the legislature after his own rather gross sexual scandal came to light, so the fact that he'd make any kind of a big deal out of Rasner's homosexuality is really petty. Apparently screwing and impregnating 14 or 15 year olds, albeit when he was 19, is not as bad as Rasner having same sex attraction. At least, the argument seems to be, you are screwing the opposite gender, so that's better. I'll leave that to others to judge. But why would one far right figure go after the other?
Proper sexual orientation seems to be the only reason. So, really, in the MAGA world screwing a 14 or 15 year old when you are 19 is, well, one of those "Romeo and Juliet" type of deals, to use Bouchard's words, but being a homosexual is just wrong.
Of course, from an Apostolic Christian point of view, sexual relations are only licit between a man and a woman inside a valid marriage, which can occur only once, while both of the couple are living. Inclination doesn't matter, and is not sinful inside itself. But that's not the modern United States, where a serial polygamist is the alleged President and who was a friend of a procurer (which perhaps he was unaware of), but he's okay as he has the right attraction. Most Populist Americans seem to believe that there's nothing really wrong with 1960s sexual libertine behavior, as long as its directed towards the opposite sex.
Rasner must figure his bolt is shot politically, as publishing himself as a homosexual will kill any chance he has of office in contemporary Wyoming. He's not the first Wyoming homosexual to have sought office, and three Wyomingites who were homosexuals have served in elective office, with two of them being open about it. I'd be stunned if there aren't any now, other than the one legislator who admits to being homosexual. Indeed, it'd be interesting if the sexual conduct of every Wyoming political figure came to light so that the MAGA adherents could be exposed to the full sunlight. Maybe they're all pure in their carnal desires, and properly oriented, but I'd be surprised.
An interesting thing here, I'd note, is that Rasner ran to the right of Barrasso, which puts him in full NatCon territory. The NatCons feel that homosexuality is a total abomination. This points out a really curious aspect of it, however, as individuals who can carry the Populist banner don't seem to see a conflict with those who would basically burn them at the stake. No matter what a person thinks of it, homosexuality wasn't something that traditional conservative Republicans cared about at all. Hardcore NatCons sure do.
July 11, 2025
The Secretary of State, whose job in Wyoming is to be a Secretary, is once again criticizing the Governor, whose job is to govern.
Gordon Defends Energy Platform; Gray Says Wind, Solar A ‘Woke Clown Show’
Gray clearly can't stay in his own lane, and is clearly running for something else. Wyomingites are pretty sharply divided on him, with the far right seeing him as some sort of brilliant crusader, and many others seeing him as a self serving buffoon looking for the spotlight to shine on himself.
July 22, 2025
In what was very clearly the first political campaign rally of Chuck Gray's 2026 campaign for Governor, Chuck spoke at The Hanger in Bar Nunn.
Spewing his usual stew of nonsense decrying "the radical left", he then turned against Radiant Energy, which has reportedly received opposition in Bar Nunn. Chuck has learned how to sound like a diehard full Trump right winger except on things unpopular, at which point he becomes nearly a Green Peace activist. You really can't thread his positions together in a straight line.
He also predictably railed against Governor Gordon. Gordon is theoretically barred from a third term, but only theoretically. Gray clearly feels that Gordon may be running, and the fact that Gordon hasn't been a far right drone has made him the target of Gray's ire.
An interesting thing here is that this the opening of his attempt at the Governor's office. Very reliable inside information had Gray going for Harriet Hageman's seat, but this would suggest that might have changed, or that Gray just doesn't have anything real to discuss. If Hageman decides to run for a second term, which as an opponent of public lands she might regret doing, Gray won't challenge her. Hageman may know, however, that her chances for the Governor's office are now dead in the water. For that matter, her chances of reelection to Congress may be as well, but there she can try to deflect attention by clinging tightly to her support of the still popular, in Wyoming, for right now, Trump.
You also can't really explain why a Secretary of State would need a "town hall". The job is about as interesting as wall paper paste if it's actual role is discussed.
July 29, 2025
From the Cowboy State Daily:
Worth noting, Hageman might not be as popular as she once was following her support of Mike Lee's land grab effort.
July 30, 2025
Gordon among nation’s most popular governors despite criticism from right flank, poll finds: National survey of Wyoming voters shows Gordon’s popularity has remained steady throughout his tenure.
July 31, 2025
August 2, 2025
The site:
Hageman has condemned the site as promoting violence due to its use of a rifle theme, which is pretty ironic for the GOP in Trump's era.
August 11, 2025
I suspect people are beginning to get a bit nervous about what their support of the land disposal move will mean at the ballot box.
They should.
One reason I suspect this is that billboards thanking the politicians are showing up. Two billboards featuring all three are thanks from "the energy industry', and ironically show the background of the Tetons.
That presumably means petroleum and coal, but it's really hard to say. The energy industry wasn't under attack to start with, so its not even clear what the thanks is for. Why do they need to be thanked?
Somebody wants everyone to remember, I guess, that all three stand with the "energy industry". We knew that. They stand with us on public lands. That's the point.
Another one around here thanks John Barrasso from the health industry. That's laughable. It's supposed to be for cutting waste from Medicaid. His support of Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. says all you really need to know about where Dr. John's heart really lies.
Both Barrasso and Gov. Gordon were at some health related event last week. I've lost track of what it was. Barrasso isn't up for reelection for years, so all of this image redirection is really interesting.
August 13, 2025
Sen. Eric Barlow will run for Wyoming governor: The Gillette Republican and former Speaker of the House will vie for the state’s top post in 2026.
This is the first really significant announcement in this race. Barlow is a somewhat known name, and definitely a serious candidate. He's a Wyoming native (which Gray is not), a working rancher (which Hageman is not) as well as a veterinarian and apparently not well liked by the Freedom Caucus (which Gray and Hageman are).
There's reason for some cautious optimism here, although I frankly don't know that much about him.
The 2026 race goes into a different phase at this point. It's actually on. Gray and Hageman. . . as well as Gordon, have to decide what they're going to do. Hageman at this point may choose to stay in the House of Representatives, or try to. Gray has to run for something, but his chances of a long term political career are evaporating.
Barlow noted he wasn't going to run a nasty campaign right away:
Barlow knows it will get ugly. If either Hageman or Gray run for Governor, it will by default. Gray can't order breakfast at McDonalds without going into a tirade about left wing communist news media conspirators, it's his brand. Hageman would likely not go nasty, but her populist backers would.
Speaking loudly in Barlow's favor, the real MAGA crowd is already attacking him on social media, according him of being a RINO. In Wyoming, the accustors in that category are Cornfederates, that crowd that figures everything went wrong since Lee surrendered at Appomattox and are deep into the lastest wacky conspiracy. Indeed, Barlow's announcement gave them a chance to declare, as I saw in one comment, that he "didn't protect us during COVID", by which they mean he didn't deny COVID existed and everything was A-Okay, which even their beloved leader King Donny didn't state.
So there's some hope here.
And this will conclude this edition.
Last edition:
