If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor.
Desmond Tutu
June 26, 2026
The candidate running against Bob Ide:
Lisa Engebretsen: Protect Wyoming’s Public Lands and Reject the Seminoe Dam Project
Getting rid of Bob Ide should be an absolute priority for anyone who cares about: 1) Wyoming's wildlands, and 2) anyone who is not a multimillionaire. A diehard MAGA/WFC who was in Washington D.C. at the time of the January 6 insurrection (he did not take part in it), his "less government, more freedom" is an absolute joke. He's a major Natrona County landlord whose very livelihood depends on the government protecting his rental lands property rights, which only exist due to the government. He is apparently unaware of the hypocrisy.
He's been amongst the most extreme members of the WFC.
June 30, 2026
The carpetbaggers of the WFC immediately resorted to name calling, of course. Everyone who opposes them is "left wing", even if they aren't.
In Alaska there will be two Dan Sullivans on the ballot, one an incumbent and some other guy.
July 1, 2026
They sow the wind and reap the whirlwind.
Hosea 8:7*
Well, everyone should have known this was coming.
For decades I've warned, in a somewhat different context, about self confident far right views being a mere fuze to ignite a left wing reaction. In my case, the warning came in the context of local politics, both in ranching and oil and gas, where people confidently boast some local view not realizing there's a lot more of them, then us.
As some people have been warning, maps don't vote.
And now MAGA has poked the bear.
From the primary in Colorado, yesterday:
Democratic socialist Melat Kiros poised to become the first Gen Z woman in Congress
Now what's going to happen is some in Trump's orbit will attempt to make hay on this. It's already happening. Donald Trump is warning everyone that there are Communists hiding in your Wheaties. Little Mike Johnson is acting like a crying twat waffle. Johnson is warning that people will go to jail.
People need to go to jail.
Now, I'm not a Socialist of any kind (I'm a distributist). But this reaction is a real one, and running around doing the classic "when in trouble, or in doubt, run in circles, scream and shout" isn't going to do anything. And on top of it, a lot of pundits who are arguing the Democrats better not turn far left are going to be proven to be way out to sea.
Now, by and large, most of the Democrats aren't far left. But the fact that the GOP has become outright Francoist and doesn't stand for conservatism means that for those who are, there's no argument here. And, moreover, some of the same demographic that voted for right wing populist will vote for left wing ones. This is well established. Quite a few Nazis had been Communists. Lots of former Nazis became East German Communists. One plate of fanaticism tastes a lot like another, and for that matter, people who are drawn to fanatic policies will be 1) drawn to ones that seem like they might work, and 2) recoil from attacks on themselves.
Trump's policies aren't working. The poor sots who voted for MAGA are worse off than they were before. Hispanics have been targeted by MAGA racism. Palestinians and other Arab Americans watched their votes translate into support for more egregious Israeli attacks in Gaza and a full scale war, that we can't win, against Iran. Those votes are gone, as the recent election in New York has shown.
And now Melat Kiros, a 29 year old Notre Dame educated lawyer who was born in Ethiopia has beat a sitting Democrat for Colorado's 1st Congressional District. That's Denver proper. She has the courage of her convictions, having lost a job with a New York City law firm for criticizing law firms for being opposed to pro Palestinian protestors.
She's going to win in the general election.
This will not mean that the seat she'll be taking, like her fellow Democratic Socialist from New York, will go to a Democrat where they had been occupied by a Republican. What it means is that there will be voices in the Democratic party that are much younger, and have a much different view, on some issues than the Democratic mainstream. And her election makes the election of old geezer MAGA's like Harriet Hageman of Wyoming look absolutely absurd in comparison.
This will end up tilting the meter on some things a bit to the left in the 120th Congress, and that's going to matter, for instance, when the next Speaker of the House is chosen and Mike Johnson goes into the dustbin of history.
Trump can and will yell about it. But on the eve of the 250th anniversary of American independence, his big fete, the big "state fair". Nobody is going. That's pretty telling.
Well, again, sow the wind, reap the whirlwind.
July 2, 2026
July 3, 2026
The Secretary of State's office faces two other election related legal actions at the presen ttime.
With this, we'll close out this edition.
July 7, 2026
WyoFile
ELECTION GUIDE 2026
Wyoming's candidates for federal, statewide and legislative offices.
Maine's Graham Platner has been accused by former girlfriend Jenny Racicot of sexual assault. Politico broke the story. Racicot made the comment:
One of the reasons I didn’t come forward sooner was, the huge moral conflict that I had between supporting his politics, but not supporting him as a person, I just want the truth out there. I just want people to have a whole scope of who he is as a person.
That doesn't quite make sense, frankly but the article in Politico is pretty detailed and the accusations are hard to discount. Platner absolutely denies theme.
There have been calls, including from inside of Maine's Democratic Party, for him to withdraw from the race. It's interesting for a variety of reasons, one being in any former era the candidate would either have to flat out attack the accuser back, or withdraw. In the current Donald "grab them by the pussy" Trump era, for the GOP sexual assault has nearly been a "m'eh" type of thing. It'll be hard for the Democrats to retain the high ground at this point if Platner stays in the race.
Of course, false claims of sexual assault against men do occur, although this does not read like one. The curious thing would be why, if a person is guilty of the things she accuses him of, he'd risk running. Having said that, we've seen a whole host of really vile behavior from GOP candidates who not only were willing to run or run for reelection, but have brushed their gross behavior off.
Platner looked to have a pretty good chance of booting ancient waffling Susan Collins out of the Senate. Those chances appear to be really diminished now, which provides a nother reason for Platner to drop out.
July 8, 2026
GOP hypocrisy on Platner is just laughably stunning.
If he's guilty of what he's accused of, it's horrible and people should not vote for him, but reactions by people like Sen. Tom Cotton are really something. He first claimed that when people who were similarly accused came up on the GOP side, Republicans wouldn't vote for them.
Then they said they only are dumping him, now that he's apparently ejecting from the campaign, as he can't beat Susan Collins.
Eh?
What about Donald "Grab them by the Pussy" Trump? He's a serial polygamist who has bragged about seeing naked teenagers in a pageant dressing room and who hung out with two, not one, rich man who had a strong attraction to teenage girls, one of whom was a rapist of teenage girls. And Trump himself has been accused of raping teenage girls through his association with Epstein. I don't know if he did it or not, and there's certainly credible reason to doubt it, but there's also some reason to believe the claims as well. In other words, a person can rationally have his doubts about Trump, who if nothing else drew a drawing of what appears to be a young naked teenage girl in a birthday card to his pal, Epstein.
And then there's Matt Gaetz, who was creepy.
And then there's at least one GOP Congressman who hung on to the bitter end after his staffer with whom he had an affair self immolated.
And then there's Ken Paxton who has recently been running around the UK with his mistress, and who has a host of other past picadillos.
And then there's Pete Hegseth, who granted wasn't elected, but still.
Oh brother.
And, by the way, what President that Donny doesn't like didn't have their (third) wife sprawled out nude in a seductive ad and didn't go to Epstein Island? Biden, Bush, Obama. . .
Geez.
Locally, Chuck Gray, picking up on the GOP flavor of the month, issued an angry screed in the form of a reel about needing to make the non problem of birthright citizenship illegal. The latest "hoards of aliens are boarding jets to have babies in airports" thing is really not a problem, but the GOP has to have some way to explain really being ineffective and just spending all its time kissing Trump's ass and achieving nothing, so that as a scare tactic is in vogue.
July 9, 2026
At least as of this morning, Platner remained in the race while Democrats openly are trying to figure out who to replace him.
They have a great alternative, but so far she won't.
Republicans have tried to make hay on the Platner disaster, but so far they really haven't been able to. The principal reason is that the GOP is such a complete and utter moral sewer in the era of "Grab them by the Pussy Trump that they really can't, and they have to be careful about that before they look just completely absurd.
Right now, they look completely absurd.
Trump, of course, hung out with John Casablancas, which raises its own questions, before he hung out with Epstein, which re-raises them. Even dismissing most of the Epstein claims, you have a conviction for sexual misbehavior that's just been back in the news, and you have what seems to be Carol Alt's credible claim that he outright groped her boobs when she was Epstein's girlfriend, and right in front of Epstein. He definitely went to Epstein Island and he gave Epstein a birthday card of a nude illustration he did, and what appears to be a rather young nude at that.
And we won't even get to the host of other sexual creeps that are in the GOP right now.
All that makes efforts by people like Tom Cotton to say, "look a Democratic monkey is throwing pooh" rather absurd, as he's sitting in a pile of thrown pooh.
Anyhow, Platner has one defender of national renown. . . Donald Trump. About Platner Trump stated:
It’s really a question of whether or not you believe the woman. A lot of people say big falsehoods,”
He’s in a bind.
Trump's mind is mush, but I'll give him credit on this one, Platner is in a bind.
And Trump is right, it is a question of whether you believe the woman.
In recent years we've been publicly schooled to always believe the woman, but as odd as it may seem, women do lie about rape. This doesn't seem like a lie, however. For that matter, Alt's claims about Trump don't seem like a lie either.
It's pretty hard to know how often that really occurs, however. What's much more clear is that a huge percentage of women who are sexually assaulted, and the estimates are that 1 in 4 women are in some fashion, don't report anything. In Platner's case, it's hard to believe that the women aren't telling the truth. They have nothing to gain by lying at all, not even notoriety, which they do not seem to be seeking.
I guess that takes us back to Trump. Alt, who is already famous, had nothing to gain either. There's enough smoke out there, additionally, to believe that some sort of fire is burning in Trump tower. It's clear, however, that he's going to die of old age before that smoke clears and the truth is discovered. My guess is that it'll have some sort of accelerated JFK like timeline. JFK, as we'll recall, was a sexual creep, which a lot of insiders knew at the time, but didn't reveal until decades later. My guess is that a lot of that sort of stuff will start to come out regarding Trump's behavior, at least his known behavior, in the decade following his death.
Heather Cox Richardson has been mentioned as a replacement for Platner.
Richardson is in the public eye a lot, or at least in the punditry class that's read by folks like me. She's never run for anything and describes herself as a "Lincoln Republican". She's married to a Maine lobsterman. So far she's declined.
That's really inexcusable. Being a critic is fine, but if you are a critic and then called to serve, you better serve, or you have lost all credibility.
Cont:
And Platner is out.
Richardson, put up or shut up.
July 10, 2026
M'eh. Giralt is still in the kiss Donald Trump's ass category.
Funny how activist politicians get at the local level.
And with this, we will end this edition.
Footnotes:
The full quote is:
“They sow the wind
and reap the whirlwind.
The stalk has no head;
it will produce no flour.
Were it to yield grain,
foreigners would swallow it up.
Last edition:
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