Last edition:
Thursday, October 16, 2025
‘A republic, if you can keep it.’
‘A republic, if you can keep it.’: With the 250th anniversary of independence from the British monarchy approaching, Americans should reflect on Benjamin Franklin’s cautionary description of our government, writes Rod Miller.
Wednesday, October 15, 2025
Kiddie Porn and the library.
People reading my comments on the illegitimate claimant to the Oval Office and the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, and indeed the general drift of Republican politics in this state, all of which are causing the ghosts of Mussolini and Franco to wonder "aren't they a little extreme?", may simply assume I'm a liberal, and that I oppose everything conservatives are doing.
They're wrong, I'm a social conservative, but anyhow. . .
For those holding that view, this post will surprise.
October 14, 2025
Panel advances legislation restricting sexual content in Wyoming library books: The Judiciary Committee voted 11-2 in support of the measure, and the issue unified Wyoming Freedom Caucus lawmakers with Republicans not always aligned with them.Committee Adopts Bill Greenlighting Lawsuits Over 'Sexually Explicit' Library Books
Here's the bill:
I have my doubts about the constitutionality of this effort, but I think this effort is worth it.
In spite of what people might say, some of these books are absolutely horrific. Without detailing how I know it, two of the books that keep coming up in this discussion, Gender Queer and This Books Is Gay do not belong in the children's section of any library and frankly should only be in a limited adult section at that. I don't overall object to them being in a library, but frankly the common assumption that they are aimed at "young adults" is correct.
Gender Queer is a "graphic" book, i.e., cartoon. It depicts a scene in which a friend instructs another teenage friend how to stick a finger up a vagina, and that's not all. This Book Is Gay is basically a homosexual sex manual for young people, complete with badly done illustrations.
Seriously?
This gets right to the roots of the culture wars. Basically, the authors of these books believe that you are a homosexual from the second you are born, if you become one later, or even really if a person ever ponders such activity. This is to "help" them get past what the authors regard unfortunate mental roadblocks.
The psychological support for such a view is basically nonexistent. Homosexuality itself, while it occurs in all cultures, is particularly prevalent in the cultural West, so much so that in China its regarded as a Western thing. At one time it was so associated with English public (that is to say private) boy's schools that it was called "the English disease". We really don't grasp it all that well.
And frankly what we don't need to do is to push teenagers who might be pondering it, outright into it, which as a society is exactly what we are in fact doing. Books like this help to do that. They're Gender Queer is practically designed to do that.
Libraries have always restricted sexual content to the young. . . until recently. I remember years ago reading an article in the Denver Post about how the Denver Public Library kept Playboy and a Buddhist sex manual in an area where you had to ask for them, with those publications being the two most requested in that section. The point is, they didn't keep bound volumes of Playboy down in the children's sections for teenage boys to peruse, even though a person could argue that it was just as instructive as those struggling with their sexuality as these texts. And, moreover, any teen asking for either one of them would have been told to pound sand.
All this comes, as these articles make plain, against the background of a lawsuit over the topic that was just settled. Not "won", but settled. One ironic element is that the librarian spoke out hoping that her settlement, which is a settlement (i.e., she didn't win, or lose, the suit) would discourage the legislature from passing this bill.
Really? It ought to encourage them to pass it.
Thursday, October 15, 1925. Pirates take the series.
Billy Mitchell judging at the Rock Creek Hunt Club's first field day of 1925.
Last edition:
Monday, October 12, 1925. Rent.
Labels: 1920s, 1925, Banana Wars, Cartoons, Ethel Hays, France, Gunboat Diplomacy, Lodging, Panama, Rif War
Tuesday, October 14, 2025
Tuesday, October 14, 1975. Operation Savannah.
South African troops invaded Angola, entering from Namibia in anticipation of Angola's independence from Portugal and the uncertain political outcome there.
About 150 Native American protesters and sympathizers held a demonstration at the U.S. Courthouse in Seattle.
Last edition:
Tuesday, October 7, 1975. Lunch.
Monday, October 13, 2025
Thick Irony
Donald J. Trump is going to Israel to be there when the hostages taken by Hamas are released. He is being widely lauded for the peace which has been arrived upon, and justifiably.
Here in the US, where he's acting like a budding dictator, he's going to be remembered as the worst President in U.S. history and will be widely hated from the moment he leaves office, forever.
It's really remarkable. Peacemaker in the Middle East. Demented dictator at home. The last item is how he will be remembered.
He wants the Nobel Peace Prize. His prize will be the utter contempt of his countrymen.
Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 10. The killing the messenger edition.
Eight months into the year, and our 10th edition for 2025.
Uff.
Mad King Donald fired Dr. Erika McEntarfer, the commissioner of the Bureau of Labor Statistics, as he was upset by the Bureau's negative job report, which he stated was rigged.
It was rigged, of course, because facts in Trumpland are rigged if they aren't universally pro Trump.
This is likely to get a lot worse as the fact is that a lot of things Trump has set in motion are going to start having pretty negative consequences. Likewise, some firmly held GOP beliefs on economics and science aren't going to hold up to reality.
Speaking of reality and the news, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting is closing its doors due to the budget rescission. The CPB, NPR and PBS are separate entities, but this is not a good development.
Republicans, who don't actually seem to realize the three entities are separate from each other, are rejoicing that public funding is ending for "left wing" media, by which they largely mean media that reports reality and the truth, as opposed to propaganda.
August 3, 2025
Three Kentucky distilleries, all small ones, have filed for bankruptcy within the past eight months, with the lastest coming last week.
While I haven't seen any analysis on it, distilleries were particularly worried about the Trump tariffs and, surprise surprise, booze can be made anywhere. Canadians have pretty much sworn off of US alcohol and were actually a major market. They make their own anyway. Seems like Europeans might be doing so also.
And part of this is probably the impact of an artisanal whiskey boom of the last decade fading.
August 5, 2025
Proposal to address ‘nation’s worst workforce exodus’ fails to get support from Wyoming lawmakers: The Wyoming Business Council says it has more policy ideas forthcoming to address "vicious" shrinking workforce conundrum.
August 10, 2025
Some really interesting things are going on that are definitely Wyoming centric that we haven't noted, or haven't noted much, and should.
The first might be that a proposal to put in a nuclear generator construction facility in Natrona County north of the town of Bar Nunn has really turned out to be controversial. This comes on the heels of a nuclear power plant in Kemmerer that is also controversial.
The ins and outs of the controversy are a little difficult to really discern, but at some level, quite a few people just don't like the idea of something nuclear. It's not coal, and its not oil. Chuck Gray, for example, has come out against this and wind energy. Chuck hasn't worked a day in his life in a blue collar job and he's just tapping into the "no sir, we don't like it" sort of thought here.
What's going to happen? We'll have to see.
Another local controversy is the approval of a 30 lot subdivision on Casper Mountain. This has drawn the ire of a lot people who live on Casper Mountain, and most of it is posed in conservation or even environmental terms.
The irony there, of course, is that people who have already built a house on the mountain are somewhat compromised in these arguments. I get it, however, as I really don't think we need more rural subdivisions in the county, at all.
On the mountain, I'd note that one of the really aggravating things that has happened recently is that last year a joint Federal/State project paved the dirt road on the backside of the mountain to the top of Muddy Mountain. It didn't need to be done and it just encourages land rapist to built houses on the backside of Casper Mountain.
Natrona County Bans Big Trucks On 26 Roads Amid Gravel Mine Controversy
I understand the opposition here, but in context, things seem to lack consistency.
Which gets back to this, I suppose. If a person just doesn't want development, they can say that.
What you can't do, however, is pretend that some major pillars of the state's economy are going to be here forever. The extractive industries are basically on their way out right now.
One of the amusing things about all of this is that the MAGA hat wearers locally who are opposed to nuclear energy are facing it in part due to the current administration.
August 13, 2025
Longtime Wyoming newspaper executives to buy, reopen eight shuttered newspapers: Overjoyed newsroom staff in communities across Wyoming are back on the job with pay after corporate closure laid off 30 employees.
Trump greenlights 14.5 million-ton coal expansion in Wyoming: The newly accessible tract represents a little more than half of the Antelope mine's annual production but signals more coal mining actions to come.
August 15, 2025
Headline in the CST:
US producer prices surge
And the tariff chickens come home to roost.
One Of Wyoming's First Combo Agriculture-Solar Farm Can’t Find A Buyer For Its Power
Trouble north of the border, where unions remain much stronger than they do here:
Air Canada cancels flights (August 15) due to labor trouble.
Air Canada is facing a flight attendants strike and is basically starting to shut down.
Cynthia Lummis on a comment from the Treasury Secretary saying the US needs to explore ways to buy more Bitcoin:
America needs the BITCOIN Act.
No, it doesn't. Focus on Wyoming issues and pay attention to them Senator.
August 17, 2025
Social Security Benefits Are an Estimated 8 Years Away From Being Slashed -- and the Cuts Are Even Bigger Than Initially Forecast
August 19, 2025
Federal mineral taxes are being reduced from16.67% to 12.5%.
They had been raised during the Biden Administration.
August 20, 2025
August 23, 2025
Employees at Laramie's Mountain Cement voted to unionize. They will be joining the International Brotherhood of Boilermakers.
August 30, 2025
Well, there's absolutely no surprise. Trump's illegal tariffs were affirmed to be illegal.
D'uh.
The Court's decision starts:
The Government appeals a decision of the Court of International Trade setting aside five Executive Orders that imposed tariffs of unlimited duration on nearly all goods from nearly every country in the world, holding that the tariffs were not authorized by the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), 50 U.S.C. § 1701 et seq. Because we agree that IEEPA’s grant of presidential authority to “regulate” imports does not authorize the tariffs imposed by the Executive Orders, we affirm.
Even here, however, the Court granted a stay of thirty days on the implementation of its order, which a private litigant would be unlikely to have received, and the government shouldn't have received here. The order should have gone into effect immediately absent the government posting a bond to cover the damages, which would be all the tariffs collected while the matter was on appeal, and all that it has already collected, which should need to be fully refunded.
But a refund won't happen and the implementation of the ruling is delayed by 30 days, so the government can appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court, which doesn't actually have to take the appeal.
Whether the S.Ct upholds it, or proves to be a pure political arm of the government, is another matter.
There were three dissents in the en banc decision.
September 7, 2025
Postal traffic into the United States dropped by more than 80% after the Trump administration ended a tariff exemption for low-cost imports.
September 9, 2025
Wyoming’s massive new federal coal tract not likely to draw high bids: State and coal industry officials want a new 440 million ton coal tract offered for sale, but opponents warn lease won't benefit public coffers like years past.
Like Star Athletes, WyoTech Grads Recruited For Jobs All Over The Country
Wyoming Wool Initiative seeks lamb donations for student program
September 13, 2025
Headline from the Trib:
Local board pulls $25M grant application to develop Radiant Nuclear site
And
Feds fast-track coal mining expansion in southwest Wyoming
And
Court sides with Wyoming utility, rules state should have allowed higher rate increase
Related threads:
The Union Pacific is laying off carmen in Green River and may be closing the shop there.
September 24, 2025
Apparently US immigration raids have caused Michelob Ultra, which is gross, to become the most popular beer in the U.S., displacing Corona, which is gross, for the last 12 months.
September 25, 2025
From the Trib:
Wyoming unemployment falls to 3.2% in August 2025
And the Cowboy State Daily:
The General Services Administration is attempting to rehire hundreds of employees laid off by Elon Musk's moronic Dipshit DOGE.
September 26, 2025
More tariffs. 100% tariff pharmaceuticals, 30% tariff on upholstered furniture, 50% tariff on kitchen cabinets and bathroom vanities, and a 30% tariff on heavy trucks.
September 30, 2025
The Trump administration plans to open more than 13 million acres of federal land for leasing for coal and provide $625 million in funds to expand power generation from coal, the latter a blatantly socialist move, but apparently Republicans are okay with Socialism now.
In Wyoming, The West Antelope III coal lease will go to competitive auction on Oct. 8.
These will prove to be carbon laden farts in a windstorm as coal will continue to decline, but the action will be damaging to long term power generation and the climate.
Cattle prices are reported to be at a record high.
October 1, 2025
Powell Valley Healthcare is shutting down its oncology services and its internal medicine clinic in Cody as a way to remain economically sustainable.
Casper air travel should continue during federal shutdown, but ripple effects loom
October 3, 2025
October 6, 2025
(LETTER) Bob Ide personally benefits from his property tax cuts
October 9, 2025
Hard liquor exports to Canada are down 85% this year.
October 11, 2025
The master negotiator got the big middle finger salute from China over his trade policies and now Trump is threatening 100% tariffs on the country.
Markets are reacting badly.
October 13, 2025
China indicated it wasn't backing down on the tariff matter.
Last edition:
Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 9. Waist Deep in the Big Muddy. It's Donald Trump's economy now.
Labels: Coal, Distributism, Economics, Errare humanum est perseverare diabolicum, Hypocrisy, Japan, Localism, Pronatalism, Subsidiarity, Taxes, The Big Ugly, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming's boom and bust economy European Union, inflation, Taxes, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming's boom and bust economy
Abortion ruling not expected until year’s end, Wyoming chief justice says
Abortion ruling not expected until year’s end, Wyoming chief justice says: “I can't tell you when the opinion will be out,” Lynne Boomgaarden told WyoFile, “but it is my best guess that probably by the end of the year, in that timeframe.”
Sunday, October 12, 2025
A series of Sunday reflections, not all of which are appropriate for the Sabbath.
This morning, I left the house early, although I had slept in. Sleeping in for me means it was 4:30 a.m.
The prior morning I had awaked at 2:00 a.m. and felt like crap all day. Part of that was because I worked, and the office was cold.
It's worse today. My arms are still and sore, from my shoulders to my wrists.
Anyhow, it wasn't in the morning. Sleeping in until 4:30 was nice. I actually got up about 3:30, took my thyroid medicine (which makes me angry every day) and went back to bed.
I shaved this morning. I don't most Sundays, or Saturdays. If was retired, I'd grow a beard.
I left for 8:30 Mass early, as I needed to get gasoline. The Jeep was on "E". I pulled into the nearby mega station and the pump didn't work. I figured it hadn't been turned on, so I ran into the store to direct the attention to the clerks.
I've only been in the station itself once. It was a few weeks ago early in the morning and there was a middle aged thin guy and a friendly, but not so sharp, young guy working there. The middle aged guy was a hoot. I brought up my snacks for the day, which included some pink "sno balls" and he noted how they used to make blue ones. He thought they had been removed as "blue balls" wasn't appropriate, but was hoping they'd bring back "blue balls". The young guy never got the joke in spite of his repeated efforts to explain it, without explaining it.
"Blue balls, man!"
Oh well.
He wasn't shaved that day either.
Today,. when I went in, the clerks were two enormously fat young women.
Now, that sounds rude, but they were. It's not a crime to be enormously fat, although it sure isn't good for you.
Both of them had all kinds of fishing tackle affixed to their faces. Piercings, as they say.
Now, in a second, or third, rude observation, having piercings if you are enormously fat doesn't make you attractive. Having piercings all over your face never makes you attractive, but having them if you are fat is a really bad look. It's similar to having tattoos if you are enormously fat woman. It makes you look worse.
Having said that, having piercings and being very thin makes you look like a meth addict.
When I came in, I noted right away "the pump needs to be turned on". They both informed me that most of the pumps weren't working. Indeed, they were very helpful on that point.
It was extremely cold, and very windy.
I noted they might want to post a sign on the pumps in that case. I was grumpy, unreasonably so.
They noted they hadn't had time as they'd only been there since 5:00 a.m..
It was 8:00 a.m.
Three hours?
They did have time to make an enormous pile of fried chicken. It was freaking huge. I can't imagine how many chickens had died to make it.
The two men who were there a couple of weeks ago had not done that.
Who buys fried chicken at 8:00 a.m.?
It did smell good, as it was fresh fried chicken.
It reminded me of the song "Sunday Morning Going Down", which mentions fried chicken.
I hate that song.
Oh well. I hope their lives are happy, and I hope too they get in shape a bit.
I went to Mass.
The Priest, on the way out, called me by name. It's not my parish, but I've been going there for months as I live the Priest's homilies'. They don't pull any punches.. I was surprised he knew my name. He's a very good Priest. I'll have to be a less severe sinner.
I'm often surprised when people know my name, as I'm an introvert. Frequently, people do.
On the way home, I stopped at a different gas station. I had to stretch the hose as the person inf ront of me, who was not filling up, and wasn't there, hadn't left enough room. As I was finishing up she showed up. She looked considerably older than me, but probably wasn't, and was wearing pajama bottoms.
People who wear pajama bottoms outside of their houses should be exchanged for Syrian refugees immediately. It's sloppy in the extreme and means you don't give a rats ass how you look.
We don't want to see you in your pajama bottoms.
I ran in the store to get some outdoor snacks. She came back i with some loud drama about how much she had paid, or not, for prepaid gas.
Seriously, even if you have a nearly new truck, if you go to the gas in your pajamas, we really don't care about your over, or under, payment. Put on some trousers.
I went out for ducks.
It soundly have been my dogs first time, but he died about a month ago, poor puppy. He was so lively, too much dog for me really.
I miss him. I'm not getting over his death, even though he was just a dog.
I hope dog souls, and cat souls, go to Heaven.
There were ducks, but the hurricane force winds frustrated me.
On the way out, I had to stop as a horse trailer was blocking the road and the driver, a cowboy, was yapping it tup with a hunter while parked in the middle of the road.. Off to the side, another cowboy was helping a young Native American woman mount a horse. The horse was calm, but the poor woman, about 20 years old, clearly didn't know how to mount it. Frankly, a greener horse would have been dangerous.
As it was, it was charming. The cowboy was concerned and helpful. They managed it, as I drove on, she was on the horse, proud but embarrassed.
Not all that long ago, her grandmother would have known how. That knowledge is lost quickly.
But then, not all that long ago, the grandfather of the cowboy wouldn't have helped. He did.
The whole time, a very young boy stood there with a horse. He's probably ten times the cowboy I ever was.
Marjorie Taylor Greene sounding like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. . . something's going on.
Something is going on.
Recent comments by Marjorie Taylor Greene:
I've been in the Capitol, and there are two things I couldn't find this week: I couldn't find anywhere the Epstein files, and I also couldn't find the Republican plan to fix the health insurance industry.
____________
"Prices have not come down at all. The job market is extremely difficult. Wages have not gone up. Health insurance is going up. Home insurance goes up. Rent is going up. Young people have no hope of buying a home."
_____________
“Health care crisis? Ignored.
Wages? Flat.
Bills? Sky high.
And you think this wins midterms?”
______________
“I’d never speak on behalf of the president, but I don’t think he’s always getting the best advice.”
_______________
I'm talking to major manufacturing companies and they are saying we're having a problem with these tariffs...
Has regular people's stress come off? No. That should be the focus. It shouldn't be helping your crypto donors. The focus should be the people that showed up at the rallies. I don't think those people are being served.
____________________
I'm not going to... keep talking the talking points, when my own adult children can hardly afford health insurance premiums.
______________________
I’m not some sort of blind slave to the president, and I don’t think anyone should be.
I serve in Congress. We’re a separate branch of the government, and I’m not elected by the president.
___________________
Have regular people's bank accounts been helped? No, that has not happened, and that needs to be the focus — it shouldn't be about helping your crypto donors.
___________________
I'm going to read you a little list... A Hollywood producer, a royal prince, a high-profile individual in the music industry, a very prominent banker, a high-profile government official, one former politician, one owner of a car company in Italy, one rock star, one magician, half a dozen billionaires, including one from Canada.
(This one riffs of of Massie, whom she is quoting).
Something is going on. Greene, who has typically sounded like a bombastic idiot, suddenly doesn't. It's not just what she's saying, which is shocking given her prior servitude to the far right, it's the way she's saying it.
She's actually not dumb.
This means something. She's saying things that if they came from a Democrat would cause Mike Johnson to put on his little smirk and discount it.
And then there's this:
They’re not Hamas. They’re literally women and children. And you can’t unsee the amount of pictures and videos of children that have been blown to pieces and are they’re finding them dead in the rubble. That isn’t—those aren’t actors, that isn’t fake war propaganda. It’s very real.
Usually MAGA supports anything Israel does.
This is interesting. If it starts repeating with other far right figures we'll know that the political winds are shifting.
On rising discontent:
You better start obeying the Constitution. It's going to get real ugly if you don't follow the laws and obey the Constitution like you swore an oath to do.
National Federation of Federal Employees President Randy Erwin puts Trump on notice
A small business owner on Twitter, whose small business depends on Chinese imports, reported "hating" Trump.
Friday, October 12, 1945. Operation Beleaguer.
I missed this when it started, which was October 10, so I'll note it here. This was day two of Operation Beleaguer, the Marine Corps occupation of northeastern China's Hebei and Shandong provinces from 1945 until 1949.
Members of the 1st Marine Division in China. Two Chinese women appear in this photograph, one dressed in Western clothing, even though the Marine Corps attempted to strictly prevent romances breaking out between Marines and Chinese civilians. People are people, so such interactions are essentially impossible to stop, but this particular story is very understudied, in part because Asian women were not covered by the War Brides Act, but marriages nonetheless occured. 5,132 Chinese women entered the United States as spouses of servicemen after World War Two, which included women who married Army Air Corps servicemen who had served in China during the war. This is, overall, a small number, and indeed its must smaller than the number of Japanese women who married U.S. servicemen after 1950, which reflects official policy, cultural differences, and lingering US prejudice in the period against the Chinese.
It was not a combat operation, although some combat would ultimately occur, but focused on the repatriation of more than 600,000 Japanese and Koreans that remained in China at the end of World War II to their homelands. Having said that, the looming crisis in post war China in which a seemingly defeated Communist Party began to advance in the country's civil war was not far from anyone's mind and the primary mission of force was to prevent the People's Liberation Army from accepting the surrender of Japanese soldiers in Northern China and to secure that region of China for the Nationalist Government, which had been an American ally throughout the war. Landings actually commenced as early as September 30. By the end of the operation in 1949, the 1st Marine Division would be a covering force for the evacuation of foreign nationals.
U.S. Marines had been in China well before World War Two, but in this instance the it was effectively a different Marine Corps than the one that had existed up until 1940. The Marine Corps had only been a major combat force once previously, and that had been during World War One when the 4th Marine Brigade had been part of the US Second Division. The 1st Marine Division dated back only to February 1, 1941 when the military started to enormously expand in anticipation of going to war. Given its prior history, only the Marines themselves really anticipated being a major ground combat element in the war, ultimately expanding to six divisions. Six divisions is a huge Marine Corps, but the Corps was dwarfed in size by the Army, even in terms of Pacific combat, where the Army deployed twenty two divisions.
With the end of the war the service began to return men quite rapidly to civilian status and members of the Marine Corps, the vast majority of whom were wartime volunteers, anticipated the same. Prior to the war Marines tended to be career oriented to a high degree, and frankly about as rough of set of characters as could be imagined. By 1945 most of them were toughened civilians in uniform, comparable to volunteers in the U.S. Army, and some were conscripts. Nobody anticipated being sent into China, even though prior to the war Marines had served there.
Because the military was in fact demobilizing, this would prove to be a problem for the 1st Marine Division in China, as it soon began to suffer attrition due to members being discharged. It's combat efficiency dropped, and at the same time, it became increasingly obvious that the Communists were going to win the Chinese Civil War.
While going to China was a surprise to the Marines, the found when they arrived that the Chinese were wildly enthusiastic about their appearance. No doubt their showing up meant not only that they were liberated from the Japanese, but also from the Communists and the Nationalist, at least for a time.
On this, while we're jumping way ahead of our story, it's also worth noting that this points out a problem in the "who lost China" line of the Republican Party following the evacuation of the Chinese Nationalist from the mainland. There are a lot of elements to that story, but the GOP at the time, suddenly shocked following the Berlin Blockade and then the fall of the Nationalist government in China, looked for somebody to blame.
It might be noted at first, that they should have looked at themselves. The GOP had been actively highly isolationist prior to World War Two and evcen leading up the last year before the war there were strong elements within the party that opposed entering the war. The Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor followed by the German declaration of war on the U.S. solved that for a time, but upon the restoration of peace, the main branch of the GOP returned to isolationism. The US didn't become isolationist as the 79th Congress remained controlled by Democrats. The 80th Congress did not, but it was somewhat ineffectual for that period (which is nothing compared to today). The 80th Congress, however, notably presided over the fall of China.
Be that as it may, some have suggested that US inaction over China was due to the penetration of the US by Soviet spies in the 1930s, and there may be a little to that, but only a little. M. Stanton Evans hinted at that in his revisionist biography of Joseph McCarthy, which is quite well done and a good read. But even there, the suggestion was that Communist elements managed to hold up arms shipments to the Nationalist. Even were that true, any follower of this site could see that in 1945 China was awash in arms and yet at the same time the Nationalist were losing battle after battle.
It is something worth exploring. Before the war with Japan, the Nationalist were winning. After the war, it just took five years for them to lose.
Anyhow,, realistically, looking at Operation Beleaguer, what really could have been done? The US was not going to be able to send U.S. troops into a Chinese Civil War right after World War Two. There was no public will for that at all and no moral within the U.S. military that would have allowed for that to have occured.
Elsewhere in China, the Shangdang Campaign ended in communist victory.
German general Anton Dostler was sentenced to death in Rome for war crimes.
The Norwegian Supreme Court upheld the death sentence imposed on Vidkun Quisling.
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