Who Is Timothy Mellon, The Reclusive Wyoming Billionaire Who Gave $130M To Troops?

 In what deluded headline writer's mind is Mellon a "Wyoming Billionaire"?

Who Is Timothy Mellon, The Reclusive Wyoming Billionaire Who Gave $130M To Troops?

Kathy Karpan, former Wyoming secretary of state, dies

Kathy Karpan, former Wyoming secretary of state, dies: An attorney and mentor to many, 83-year-old public servant is remembered for being an insatiable reader and a "wonderful friend."

Trump’s Argentine beef move causes ‘great concern, some panic’

Trump’s Argentine beef move causes ‘great concern, some panic’

Well, this is in the play stupid games, win stupid prizes category.  Most ranchers voted for Trump.  That he'd now be shitting on them isn't a surprise to anyone, except I guess to themselves.

Well that's embarrassing.

Trump was clearly clueless and walked right when the Japanese Prime Minister stopped to review the honor guard, leaving her to have to catch up.  People guided Trump around like a demented elderly person. . . which of course he is.

And the saluting.

Ronald Reagan started saluting at U.S troops.  It's moronic.  It was then, and it still is. Trump's a civilian, he shouldn't be saluting anyone.

The Agrarian's Lament: Lex Anteinternet: An East Wing Post Mortem. An East Wing Post Mortem. Outrage over our Gilded Overlords.

The Agrarian's Lament: Lex Anteinternet: An East Wing Post Mortem. Outra...: 

Lex Anteinternet: An East Wing Post Mortem. Outrage over our Gilded Overlords.

I've posted a fair amount on this story. 

Lex Anteinternet: An East Wing Post Mortem.:   Comparative air photos posted by CBS News. Put up under commentary and fair use exception. I've never seen the East Wing of the White ...

One of my old friends, whose become a hardcore right wing populist, while also interestingly being a hardcore corner crossing advocate (the two are in fact mutually exclusive), posted this on his Facebook feed:

The President, and "your President" decides to renovate the Whitehouse, with donations and on his own dime mind you, and he is “Destroying Democracy?” Some of your hypocrisy cancels your outrage. I’m so sick of this crap. It’s just another reminder that the other side has nothing to offer Americans other that staged outrage over bull. TDS much??

Some on the far right have completely swallowed that this is "staged outrage".  The irony is that the exact same people were outraged about everything that Joe Biden did, and Barack Obama did.  Some of that outrage was because they were told to be.

And here's the next thing. The ballroom is probably not going to be completed before Trump leaves office.  Frankly, as the matter is now in litigation, there's going to be some delay.  If a judge is really upset, which is unlikely due to the way courts work, there's precedent for returning the structure ot the status quo ante before anything goes forward, which would in and of itself likely take years.

That's unlikely of course, but there's going to be a district court ruling and then an appeals court ruling. All that will take six months on a project that would normally take several years to complete.

But that's not the point.

The next President, unless its J. D. Vance, is going to take this down, it it gets built  If its a Republican like Thomas Massie it'll gleefully be torn down.  If its a Democrat, it's also coming down.

Let's make it clear.

The ballroom, if its built, or however much of it that's built, will be taken down and erased from the public memory.

At that point in time, will those who support Trump in whatever he does state: The President, and "your President" decides to renovate the Whitehouse, with donations and on his own dime mind you, and he is “Destroying Democracy?”

Not hardly, even if no public funds are then used.  They'll be outraged about how its "destroying" the legacy of a "great" president.

So why does this bother me?

Well in part because I'm an agrarian and this entire project is an insult to agrarians.

Ballrooms are the high school basketball courts of the super wealthy  A place where the extremely wealthy can meet and mingle and do those things Trump noted, have drinks in the foyer, etc.  The kind of place where you can talk shop and meet with the rich and powerful, and heads of state.  Maybe have the Saudi king over, or rub elbows with guests like Prince William. . . or maybe Harry and Jeff Epstein.  It's a public building, no matter whose tribute is used to pay for it, but you can't book your wedding reception of bar mitzvah reception there.

Because you are a peasant.

The entire concept of a massive ornate public building like this is that you peons will love it because you love to bask in the glory of your benighted leaders.  And those benighted leaders, having been born into wealth, really believe that.  You love them as they love themselves, and you are happy to serve the glorious benighted.

That's the antithesis of the American concept.

Here's what the White House grounds should return to, and I'm not joking.

The West Wing also dates back to TR's time in the White House with the construction of what was supposed to be a temporary structure.  That structure was expanded in 1909 and ultimately came to be the White House office space.  I don't doubt that they need office space, but as noted, maybe it can just be somewhere else.

And in fact, for the most part, it should be.

Taft family milk cow Pauline Wayne, one of two milk cows the Tafts kept and allowed to freely roam the White House grounds. What is now known as the Eisenhower building is in the background.  This is as things should be.

Sometime last week I was somehow the recipient of a real estate brochure entitled "Land".

I didn't get around to looking at it until today, even though I knew what it was going to be.  Agricultural land turned into the playgrounds of the rich.

That should end.  People who hold agricultural ground, or even large blocks of ground, should have to make their livings from it and nothing else.  The wealthy holding such ground hurts those who would make a living in this simple manner.

We live in a new Gilded Age.  That age gave rise to the Progressive movement and swept into office people like Theodore Roosevelt.  Something like that needs to happen again.

Yes, I'm outraged over the East Wing coming down for a ballroom, and the very concept of a ballroom outrages me.  I'm outraged that common people have fallen for outright lies and believe everything Donald Trump tells them.  I'm outraged that the extremely wealthy are running the show on everything while, at the same time, our Gilded masters tell us to hate the poorest of the poor.  I'm outraged that Congress will not do its job.  I'm outraged that our military is being ordered to murder people in the Caribbean.  And I"m outraged that our local politicians tell us to support this crap when they do so, in at least 2/3s of the instances, as it keeps them in their elected jobs.

Wednesday, October 28, 1925 Mitchell challenges Jurisdiction.

 

Billy Mitchell questioned the Army's jurisdiction to try him.

The Casper paper ran Out Our Way.

Turning down pie?

Whatever It Is, I’m Against It: Today -100: October 28, 1925: What sort of monster...: Since the French Cabinet can’t force Finance Minister Joseph Caillaux to resign when he rejects a capital levy, the whole Cabinet resigns i...

The age 25 year thing on marriage permission is really interesting. That's surprisingly high. 

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 27, 1925. Ethel: Then and Now.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Cartoons, Ethel Hays

A House of Dynamite

I suppose this film should not technically be in this category, as it takes place in contemporary times.  However, it fits into the Doomsday Thriller category of movie, and its in good company with some others we should touch on. Such filmes would include Fail Safe, Dr. Strangelove, On The Beach, The Bedford Incident, and War Games.

This movie, quite frankly, maybe the very best of them, although Dr. Strangelove would certainly give it a run for that.

Using a technique used in the recent movie Dunkirk, this film has a series of timelines all of which center around the same thing.  An inbound intercontinental missile, launched somewhere in the Pacific, has been detected and there's a mere 20 minutes to address the situation.  The launch was undetected, so its unclear who sent the single missile on its way.  At first it's assumed that its probably a North Korean test and will drop in the Pacific, but soon its clear that it is not.

The timeline involves an anti ballistic missile unit attempting to shoot the missle down, the senior leaders of the military attempting to figure out what is going on and how to deal with it, and the President of the United States, at a public relations event, struggling to determine how, if at all, the country should react to a missle that seems likely to hit U.S. soil.

It's very well done and frankly probably a lot more realistic than people may wish to admit.  Cell phone discipline breaks down nearly immediately, which on the cusp of a nuclear disaster, it likely would.  The individual reactions, from stoic to distraught, are likely fairly accurate too.  All in all, I can't find anything to criticize about this film, although government officials have, most particularly the U.S. Military which insists that in this scenario it'd likely have a 100% chance of shooting the inbound missile down.

Uh huh.

Which leaves this film a very disturbing one.

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 106th Edition A series of Zeitgeist predictions about New York City.

Mamdani is obviously going to win.

Republicans will freak out.  

Mike "Smarmy Smile" Johnson will be in full bullshit mode for weeks.  "I'm not keeping the House in perpetual recess because I'm afraid of the Epstein files but because a Communist Marxist Islamist has been elected to Mayor in New York and that means that we can't look at the Epstein files".  

Trump will wax poetic, "My Mommy, that's what I call him, mommy. . . I loved my mommy, she was from Scotland, where they invented golf.  Are we in Mar A Lago, no, well, the Communists, Marxists, Monarchical Islamist don't want me to build a ballroom, that's because they can't dance and their legs are thin. The Wonderful thing about Tiggers is Tiggers are wonderful things tops are made out of rubber their bottoms are made out of springs Their bouncey, trouncey, ouncey, pouncey fun, fun, fun, fun, fun But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers is I'm the only one. Tiggers are cuddily fellows Tiggers are awfully sweet everyone el'es is jealous That's why I repeat and repeat The wonderful thing about Tiggers Is Tiggers are marvelous chaps They're loaded with vim and vigor they love to leap in your laps They're jumpy, bumpy, clumpy, thumpy fun fun fun fun fun But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers Is I'm the only one I-I-I'm the only...-oof Ouch.  I've decided to kill the entire population of South America. . . "

John Thune will say something, with an earnest looking John Barrasso behind him, but nobody will remember what it was, as nobody was paying attention to him to start with.

And then a weird thing will happen.

Mamdani will probably govern more or less from the center, as he'll have to, which is likely to make his administration a success.

Which is the biggest Republican nightmare of all.

Last edition:

CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 105th Edition. What's up with the rush on the White House?

Labels: 2020s, 2025, 2025 White House Vandalization, Architecture, Catholic, Christianity, Democratic Party, Illiberal Democracy, National Conservatism, The Second Trump Administration, Vandals, Washington DC, Wyoming, Zeitgeist

Saturday, October 27, 1945. Navy Day.

 

Stamp issued on this day in 1945.

Today is Navy Day, and has been since the day was first established.  This was, of course, the first Navy Day since the end of World War Two and was a huge deal accordingly.

Ships anchored in the Hudson for Navy Day.

President Truman commissioned the new aircraft carrier the USS Franklin D. Roosevelt.  In so doing, he delivered this address:

Mayor La Guardia, ladies and gentlemen:

I am grateful for the magnificent reception which you have given me today in this great city of New York. I know that it is given me only as the representative of the gallant men and women of our naval forces, and on their behalf, as well as my own, I thank you.

New York joins the rest of the Nation in paying honor and tribute to the four million fighting Americans of the Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard—and to the ships which carried them to victory.

On opposite sides of the world, across two oceans, our Navy opened a highway for the armies and air forces of the United States. They landed our gallant men, millions of them, on the beachheads of final triumph. Fighting from Murmansk, the English Channel and the Tyrrhenian Sea, to Midway, Guadalcanal, Leyte Gulf and Okinawa—they won the greatest naval victories in history. Together with their brothers in arms in the Army and Air Force, and with the men of the Merchant Marine, they have helped to win for mankind all over the world a new opportunity to live in peace and dignity—and we hope, in security.

In the harbor and rivers of New York City and in other ports along the coasts and rivers of the country, ships of that mighty United States Navy are at anchor. I hope that you and the people everywhere will visit them and their crews, seeing for yourselves what your sons and daughters, your labor and your money, have fashioned into an invincible weapon of liberty.

The fleet, on V-J Day, consisted of 1200 warships, more than 50,000 supporting and landing craft, and over 40,000 navy planes. By that day, ours was a sea power never before equalled in the history of the world. There were great carrier task forces capable of tracking down and sinking the enemy's fleets, beating down his air power, and pouring destruction on his war-making industries. There were submarines which roamed the seas, invading the enemy's own ports, and destroying his shipping in all the oceans. There were amphibious forces capable of landing soldiers on beaches from Normandy to the Philippines. There were great battleships and cruisers which swept the enemy ships from the seas and bombarded his shore defense almost at will.

And history will never forget that great leader who, from his first day in office, fought to reestablish a strong American Navy—who watched that Navy and all the other might of this Nation grow into an invincible force for victory—who sought to make that force an instrument for a just and lasting peace—and who gave his life in the effort—Franklin D. Roosevelt.

The roll call of the battles of this fleet reads like a sign post around the globe—on the road to final victory: North Africa, Sicily, Italy, Normandy, and Southern France; the Coral Sea, Midway, Guadalcanal, and the Solomons; Tarawa, Saipan, Guam, the Philippine Sea, Leyte Gulf; Iwo Jima and Okinawa. Nothing which the enemy held on any coast was safe from its attack.

Now we are in the process of demobilizing our naval force. We are laying up ships. We are breaking up aircraft squadrons. We are rolling up bases, and releasing officers and men. But when our demobilization is all finished as planned, the United States will still be the greatest naval power on earth.

In addition to that naval power, we shall still have one of the most powerful air forces in the world. And just the other day, so that on short notice we could mobilize a powerful and well-equipped land, sea, and air force, I asked the Congress to adopt universal training.

Why do we seek to preserve this powerful Naval and Air Force, and establish this strong Army reserve? Why do we need to do that?

We have assured the world time and again—and I repeat it now—that we do not seek for ourselves one inch of territory in any place in the world. Outside of the right to establish necessary bases for our own protection, we look for nothing which belongs to any other power.

We do need this kind of armed might, however, for four principal tasks:

First, our Army, Navy, and Air Force, in collaboration with our allies, must enforce the terms of peace imposed upon our defeated enemies.

Second, we must fulfill the military obligations which we are undertaking as a member of the United Nations Organization—to support a lasting peace, by force if necessary.

Third, we must cooperate with other American nations to preserve the territorial integrity and the political independence of the nations of the Western Hemisphere.

Fourth, in this troubled and uncertain world, our military forces must be adequate to discharge the fundamental mission laid upon them by the Constitution of the United States—to "provide for the common defense" of the United States.

These four military tasks are directed not toward war—not toward conquest—but toward peace.

We seek to use our military strength solely to preserve the peace of the world. For we now know that this is the only sure way to make our own freedom secure.

That is the basis of the foreign policy of the people of the United States.

The foreign policy of the United States is based firmly on fundamental principles of righteousness and justice. In carrying out those principles we shall firmly adhere to what we believe to be right; and we shall not give our approval to any compromise with evil.

But we know that we cannot attain perfection in this world overnight. We shall not let our search for perfection obstruct our steady progress toward international cooperation. We must be prepared to fulfill our responsibilities as best we can, within the framework of our fundamental principles, even though we recognize that we have to operate in an imperfect world.

Let me restate the fundamentals of that foreign policy of the United States:

1. We seek no territorial expansion or selfish advantage. We have no plans for aggression against any other state, large or small. We have no objective which need clash with the peaceful aims of any other nation.

2. We believe in the eventual return of sovereign rights and self-government to all peoples who have been deprived of them by force.

3. We shall approve no territorial changes in any friendly part of the world unless they accord with the freely expressed wishes of the people concerned.

4. We believe that all peoples who are prepared for self-government should be permitted to choose their own form of government by their own freely expressed choice, without interference from any foreign source. That is true in Europe, in Asia, in Africa, as well as in the Western Hemisphere.

5. By the combined and cooperative action of our war allies, we shall help the defeated enemy states establish peaceful democratic governments of their own free choice. And we shall try to attain a world in which Nazism, Fascism, and military aggression cannot exist.

6. We shall refuse to recognize any government imposed upon any nation by the force of any foreign power. In some cases it may be impossible to prevent forceful imposition of such a government. But the United States will not recognize any such government.

7. We believe that all nations should have the freedom of the seas and equal rights to the navigation of boundary rivers and waterways and of rivers and waterways which pass through more than one country.

8. We believe that all states which are accepted in the society of nations should have access on equal terms to the trade and the raw materials of the world.

9. We believe that the sovereign states of the Western Hemisphere, without interference from outside the Western Hemisphere, must work together as good neighbors in the solution of their common problems.

10. We believe that full economic collaboration between all nations, great and small, is essential to the improvement of living conditions all over the world, and to the establishment of freedom from fear and freedom from want.

11. We shall continue to strive to promote freedom of expression and freedom of religion throughout the peace-loving areas of the world.

12. We are convinced that the preservation of peace between nations requires a United Nations Organization composed of all the peace-loving nations of the world who are willing jointly to use force if necessary to insure peace.

Now, that is the foreign policy which guides the United States. That is the foreign policy with which it confidently faces the future.

It may not be put into effect tomorrow or the next day. But nonetheless, it is our policy; and we shall seek to achieve it. It may take a long time, but it is worth waiting for, and it is worth striving to attain.

The Ten Commandments themselves have not yet been universally achieved over these thousands of years. Yet we struggle constantly to achieve them, and in many ways we come closer to them each year. Though we may meet setbacks from time to time, we shall not relent in our efforts to bring the Golden Rule into the international affairs of the world.

We are now passing through a difficult phase of international relations. Unfortunately it has always been true after past wars, that the unity among allies, forged by their common peril, has tended to wear out as the danger passed.

The world cannot afford any letdown in the united determination of the allies in this war to accomplish a lasting peace. The world cannot afford to let the cooperative spirit of the allies in this war disintegrate. The world simply cannot allow this to happen. The people in the United States, in Russia, and Britain, in France and China, in collaboration with all the other peace-loving people, must take the course of current history into their own hands and mold it in a new direction-the direction of continued cooperation. It was a common danger which united us before victory. Let it be a common hope which continues to draw us together in the years to come.

The atomic bombs which fell on Hiroshima and Nagasaki must be made a signal, not for the old process of falling apart but for a new era—an era of ever-closer unity and ever-closer friendship among peaceful nations.

Building a peace requires as much moral stamina as waging a war. Perhaps it requires even more, because it is so laborious and painstaking and undramatic. It requires undying patience and continuous application. But it can give us, if we stay with it, the greatest reward that there is in the whole field of human effort.

Differences of the kind that exist today among nations that fought together so long and so valiantly for victory are not hopeless or irreconcilable. There are no conflicts of interest among the victorious powers so deeply rooted that they cannot be resolved. But their solution will require a combination of forbearance and firmness. It will require a steadfast adherence to the high principles which we have enunciated. It will also require a willingness to find a common ground as to the methods of applying those principles.

Our American policy is a policy of friendly partnership with all peaceful nations, and of full support for the United Nations Organization. It is a policy that has the strong backing of the American people. It is a policy around which we can rally without fear or misgiving.

The more widely and clearly that policy is understood abroad, the better and surer will be the peace. For our own part we must seek to understand the special problems of other nations. We must seek to understand their own legitimate urge toward security as they see it.

The immediate, the greatest threat to us is the threat of disillusionment, the danger of insidious skepticism—a loss of faith in the effectiveness of international cooperation. Such a loss of faith would be dangerous at any time. In an atomic age it would be nothing short of disastrous.

There has been talk about the atomic bomb scrapping all navies, armies, and air forces. For the present, I think that such talk is 100 percent wrong. Today, control of the seas rests in the fleets of the United States and her allies. There is no substitute for them. We have learned the bitter lesson that the weakness of this great Republic invites men of ill-will to shake the very foundations of civilization all over the world. And we had two concrete lessons in that.

What the distant future of the atomic research will bring to the fleet which we honor today, no one can foretell. But the fundamental mission of the Navy has not changed. Control of our sea approaches and of the skies above them is still the key to our freedom and to our ability to help enforce the peace of the world. No enemy will ever strike us directly except across the sea. We cannot reach out to help stop and defeat an aggressor without crossing the sea. Therefore, the Navy, armed with whatever weapons science brings forth, is still dedicated to its historic task: control of the ocean approaches to our country and of the skies above them.

The atomic bomb does not alter the basic foreign policy of the United States. It makes the development and application of our policy more urgent than we could have dreamed 6 months ago. It means that we must be prepared to approach international problems with greater speed, with greater determination, with greater ingenuity, in order to meet a situation for which there is no precedent.

We must find the answer to the problems created by the release of atomic energy—we must find the answers to the many other problems of peace—in partnership with all the peoples of the United Nations. For their stake in world peace is as great as our own.

As I said in my message to the Congress, discussion of the atomic bomb with Great Britain and Canada and later with other nations cannot wait upon the formal organization of the United Nations. These discussions, looking toward a free exchange of fundamental scientific information, will be begun in the near future. But I emphasize again, as I have before, that these discussions will not be concerned with the processes of manufacturing the atomic bomb or any other instruments of war.

In our possession of this weapon, as in our possession of other new weapons, there is no threat to any nation. The world, which has seen the United States in two great recent wars, knows that full well. The possession in our hands of this new power of destruction we regard as a sacred trust. Because of our love of peace, the thoughtful people of the world know that that trust will not be violated, that it will be faithfully executed.

Indeed, the highest hope of the American people is that world cooperation for peace will soon reach such a state of perfection that atomic methods of destruction can be definitely and effectively outlawed forever.

We have sought, and we will continue to seek, the attainment of that objective. We shall pursue that course with all the wisdom, patience, and determination that the God of Peace can bestow upon a people who are trying to follow in His path.

The Battle of Surabaya began in Indonesia.

Last edition:

Friday, October 26, 1945. Cowards.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Albert Einstein, Allied Occupation of Germany, Bulgaria, Communism, Nazi Germany, Nazi Party, Nuremberg Trials, War Crimes, Weapons

Tuesday, October 27, 1925. Ethel: Then and Now.

 

Last edition:

Monday, October 26, 1925. Doolittle wins the Schneider Trophy.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Air Racing, Aircraft, Jimmy Doolittle, U.S. Air Force

Wednesday, October 27, 1875. A Thanksgiving Proclamation

U. S. Grant made a Thanksgiving Day proclaimation:

Proclamation 226—Thanksgiving Day, 1875

October 27, 1875

By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

In accordance with a practice at once wise and beautiful, we have been accustomed, as the year is drawing to a close, to devote an occasion to the humble expression of our thanks to Almighty God for the ceaseless and distinguished benefits bestowed upon us as a nation and for His mercies and protection during the closing year.

Amid the rich and free enjoyment of all our advantages, we should not forget the source from whence they are derived and the extent of our obligation to the Father of All Mercies.

We have full reason to renew our thanks to Almighty God for favors bestowed upon us during the past year.

By His continuing mercy civil and religious liberty have been maintained, peace has reigned within our borders, labor and enterprise have produced their merited rewards; and to His watchful providence we are indebted for security from pestilence and other national calamity.

Apart from national blessings, each individual among us has occasion to thoughtfully recall and devoutly recognize the favors and protection which he has enjoyed.

Now, therefore, I, Ulysses S. Grant, President of the United States, do recommend that on Thursday, the 25th day of November, the people of the United States, abstaining from all secular pursuits and from their accustomed avocations, do assemble in their respective places of worship, and, in such form as may seem most appropriate in their own hearts, offer to Almighty God their acknowledgments and thanks for all His mercies and their humble prayers for a continuance of His divine favor.

In witness whereof I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.

Done at the city of Washington, this 27th day of October, A.D. 1875, and of the Independence of the United States the one hundredth.

U.S. GRANT.

By the President:

HAMILTON FISH, Secretary of State.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 26, 1875. The Virginia City Fire.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, Disaster, Nevada, Nevada (Virginia City), tools and appliances

Governor talks election bill flood, eroding civility and tyranny at Lander town hall

Governor talks election bill flood, eroding civility and tyranny at Lander town hall: League of Women Voters hosted Mark Gordon, who fielded questions about everything from new property tax law impacts to the well-publicized beef between him and Secretary of State Chuck Gray.

 

In Trump-Friendly Iowa, the President’s Policies Have Hit Hard

The state has become a stronghold for President Trump. Now, his efforts on trade, energy and immigration are squeezing farmers, disrupting labor and threatening industries.

Ezra Klein looks at the state of the Democrats. . twice.

The Ezra Klein show recently ran two really interesting vlog episodes on why the Democratic Party is in the dumpster, even as the Republican Party makes the entire country a raging dumpster fire.  They're instructive, but in the case of the first one, not for the reason the guest likely hoped for.

It wasn't all that long ago, we should note, that political scientists had declared that the GOP doomed to demographic extinction.  It was, and is, a small tent party.  The party needed to reach out, it was told, and bring in all the people in the Democratic camp.  Long time readers here, of which there are likely very few, will recall that I predicated that some of the demographic  analysis was flat out wrong, and that Hispanics in particular would start moving into the Republican Party.

I was right.  

Now we live in the opposite world.  People hate the Republican Party but they hate the Democratic Party more.  Really a new party is needed, one that doesn't see global warming as a fib but which opposed abortion, for example, would have a lot of appeal.  But that's a post for some other time.

Let's look at what the experts have to say.  First, as it was first in time, is the interview with  Suzanne Mettler, a political scientist at Cornell and co-author of the new book “Rural Versus Urban: The Growing Divide That Threatens Democracy"

The interview is here.

I could tell in listening to it that Klein thinks the book is wrong, and while I haven't read it, I know it is, if it espouses the same views that Mettler did in her interview.  She looks at everything economically and that's about it. Social issues don't mean anything.

Well, I lived through this and saw a Wyoming that had a large, but minority, Democratic Party almost completely die.  Most of the major active Democrats in the party started to move to the Republican Party during the Clinton Administration and that trickle became a flood.  All sorts of respected "traditional" elder Republicans in Wyoming were once Democrats.  They left as it increasingly became impossible to be a centrist or conservative Democrat.  There's no room for a pro life Democrat, for instance, in the party anymore.  Once homosexual marriages, transgenderism, and showing up at rallies with blue hair became the norm, the normal largely dropped out and won't come back.

That's what killed the Democrats in the West.

This interview with Jared Abbott, the director of the Center for Working-Class Politics, is much better as Abbot is realistic and not hopelessly clueless, as Mettler seems to be:

Abbot actually admits that he isn't sure if the Democrats can come back from political exile in rural areas, but the examples he gives of people running from the outside are excellent.  Nebraska equivalent of Wyoming's John Barrasso, Deb Fischer, provides an interesting example as she nearly went down in defeat to independent Dan Osborn.

Osborn's race is really instructive as he wasn't a Democrat, but called bullshit on a lot of Fischer's politics.  Osborn himself is a working man, and he's pretty conservative.

And there's the real lesson.

Democrats right now can't get any traction in rural areas as frankly nobody can stand to vote for anyone they are putting up, most of the time, and then when they do put up a good candidate, the party's platform kills them.  The Democratic Party became, quite frankly, the Transgendered Vegan Party, and that's going nowhere.  It not only became that, it can't get away from it.  Look at any protest of Trump's policies that's a public one, and you'll see the usual suspects.  If there isn't a hugely overweight middle aged woman with blue hair, you just aren't looking hard enough.

Indeed, this has become so much the case that that left wing protests that are popular now are sometimes all Republican.  In Natrona County the recent Radiant Energy No Nuke protests were lead by Republicans including a Wyoming Freedom Caucus member of the legislature.  Chuck Gray came up and lead his support, sounding like he was Chuck Gray from Greenpeace.  If Democrats can't own that issue . . . .

There seems to be a little waking up, but only a little.  Public lands is what did it.

Back in the 1980s, when I switched from the Republican Party into the Democratic Party (I left the Dems with the great flood of us who couldn't hack the weirdness), public lands and attention to environmental issues is what did it.  People worship Ronald Reagan now, but James Watt, his Secretary of the Interior, was an Evangelical Christian zealot in favor of ravaging the land now, as he was certain that the Second Coming was going to be very soon.  That land ravaging instinct remains very strong in the GOP and recently came out in spades.

Wyoming Democrat Karlee Provenza picked right up on that and came out in front.  The Democrats need to do more of that.  Land issues are near and ear to Wyomingites and the Republicans are very vulnerable on them.  That issue alone might, if really exploited, bring the Democrats back if their campaigns were really strategic.  

Some of that strategy has to be getting really personal.  Sure, Hageman is for turning public lands over for sale. . she's from a "fourth generation" ranching family, and the ranchers always believe they'll get the land, even though they won't.  Same for Lummis  Sure, Dr. John is for it, he's a Pennsylvanian not a Wyomingite.  Did you every see him at your favorite fishing hole?

But one issue alone is a risky proposition. What they also need to do is dump the weirdness.  Being lashed to transgenderism is a completely losing proposition.  A Democratic candidate is going to be asked about it . . and could really make hay on it.

But only if they're willing to fight dirty, which the GOP definitely is.  But they're not prepared for the same.

For instance, if a public lands Democrat was running for the House, and asked about this issue, we would expect the usually milk toast fall in line answer they normally give.  But if they said, "oh gosh no, that's a mental illness and it needs to be treated that way, and women's sports and role in society needs to be protected. . . " it'd leave the Republicans flat footed.

They'd be on their heels, however, if it went further.  If you added "and by the way, I constantly hear our GOP talk about being pro family.  I don't know how pro family you can be if you are jacking up their cost of living and particularly their insurance rantes, but what about that family stuff?  Hageman's been married for years and she ain't got any children. . nephews and nieces aren't the same thing, and Chuck Gray is 36 years old and unmarried. . .what's up with that?  Why I think a decent man ought to marry a decent woman young and have some kids. . . and when that doesn't happen that's because they aren't focused on families, darn it".

Yeah, that's nasty, but how do they reply?  It is the case that Hageman and her husband have never had children.  Maybe there's a medical reason, but maybe it was a focus on careers and using pharmaceuticals to avoid it.  If so, that ain't very populist Republican.  And Chuck Gray is 36 years old and unmarried.  I know that he's a Mass attending Catholic, and I'm not accusing him of any intimate immorality, but I will note that by age 36 men are usually married, or in our current society, living with some female "partner".  Gray doesn't appear to fit either of these which is odd, as it demonstrates something about his character, perhaps simply an unlikeable character, that's keeping it from occurring, unless he just doesn't want to get married, which is unlikely.

FWIW, as I'm a bit connected, I know that Gray dated women while living in Casper.  Obviously those relationships didn't work out.  I'm not claiming he's light in his loafers.

I will say, however, that once you get out there, there are die hard right wing Republicans in this state who are subject to some unwelcome attention on their personal lives.  Is that fair?  Well, if you are calling for suppressing certain groups, and you are part of them, you owe people an explanation.

Which gets back to the inevitable question that comes up now, "what about gay marriage".  Again, it's easy for a Republican to say "I believe marriage is between a man and a woman".  A Democratic coming back with "so do I, and I believe that union arises once. . . what do you think about that Dr. John. . . and is that why you abandoned your original faith?".  

Nasty.  But Dr. John wouldn't have a very good answer for it.

Abortion is always going to come up.  Abortion is the issue that ultimately drove a lot of us out of the Democratic Party, including me.  The Democrats should simply abandon a position on it and let candidates stake out their own ground.  There remain a few pro life Democrats out there, and to be one shouldn't be an anathema. 

And, indeed, if that was allowed, it allows uncomfortable questions to be asked.  Republicans claim to be pro life, but now their massively in favor of IVF, which kills most of the embrioes that it creates.  Current Democrats can't really ask about that without hypocrisy.  A pro life Democrat could.

Can the Democrats do all that?

Probably not.

Sunday Morning Scene: Happy Cowboys

 Happy Cowboys

Friday, October 26, 1945. Cowards.

Nazis awaiting trial were demonstrating themselves to be cowards.

Albert Einstein advocated for a world government to prevent nuclear war in an interview in The Atlantic.

Communists battled their opponents in the streets of Sofia, Bulgara.

Last edition:

Wednesday, October 24, 1945. The United Nations comes into being.

Labels: 1940s, 1945, Collaborators, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Socialism, United Nations

Monday, October 26, 1925. Doolittle wins the Schneider Trophy.

The Schneider Cup seaplane race was held in the US for the first time  Lt. Jimmy Doolittle won, flying a Curtiss R3C.

This uniformed gentleman posted for a photograph.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 24, 1925.

Labels: 1920s, 1925, Art, Edgar Franklin Wittmack, hunting, Women

Tuesday, October 26, 1875. The Virginia City Fire.

Virginia City, Nevada suffered a devastating fire when a kerosene lamp fell over and ignited a structure while high winds were blowing in the city.

Last edition:  

Sunday, October 9, 1875. Mormon Tabernacle Dedicated.

Labels: 1870s, 1875, Mormon, religion, Utah, Utah (Salt Lake City), Yeoman's First Law of History