A thaw turned the ground at Verdun to mud, slowing the German advance, and increasing German casualties.
Last edition:
Friday, February 27, 2026
Pollice Verso. The 2026 Political Negative Endorsement. The Don't Vote For List.
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So, we aren't telling you who to vote for, but for the first time ever, we're publishing something on whom we think you should vote against, although it frankly takes a lot of hubris to even assume anyone at all cares what I think on this topic.
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#very election season people say something about the election being the most critical one ever but 2026 really is. 2026 may be the last gasp of American democracy, or the beginning of the restoration of it. Right now, the American electorate basically stabbed democracy accidentally in the back by electing a mentally declining spoiled rich boy caudillo, and the whole world is paying the price.
The US is being run on a near dictatorial basis by the madman. The Republican Party, save for a few of its notable members, has become nothing but a collection of worshippers, many of whom are steeped in ignorance. The childlike ignoramus who is running the country is going to try to steal the 2026 elections. About this there can be no doubt.
Part of the duty of the voters is to be informed. It's pretty clear a lot of American voters, no matter what their party affiliation, aren't. Indeed, I dare say the most informed voters are Independents who have informed themselves on both parties and marched out of the parties absolutely disgusted.
In Wyoming you almost have to be a member of the Republican Party or you have no vote at all. But in Wyoming a collection of Dixiecrats who think they are Republicans and think they are for "freedom" is now the most powerful voice in the legislature and due to Cynthia Lummis retiring the entire mix of candidates is in flux.
This trailing thread is a list of people to vote against. That's a terrible way to vote, but given the times and the slate of candidates, its something people need to consider.
This list, we'll note, is limited to current candidates. Not every Wyoming politician. If experience is any guide we would note that not getting voted for tends to refocus a politicians attention like nothing else. If there's a big shift in 2026 and some traction on that in Wyoming, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if Chuck Gray wrote daily proposals of marriage to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
There are plenty of candidates running for office in Wyoming who'd end the public's right to do this, or anything, on public land.
Enemies of Public Lands, Hunters and Fishermen
Wyoming public lands users were shocked in 2025 with Deseret Mike Lee lead a full blown charge at public lands and Wyoming's Lummis, Barrasso, and Hageman joined right in. Given their histories respectively of 1) being a Cheshire Cat, 2) Being a sycophantic toady and 3) being a member of a family that very distinctly doesn't care much for anyone who isn't an agricultural landowner, we shouldn't have been surprised, and yet we were.
Our guards still need to be up in a major way. This issue hasn't gone away and if 2025/26s Trump babbling about Greenland, Gaza and Venezuela has shown anything, its that Donald Trump's GOP doesn't give a rats ass about anything that can't be reduced to a sale and the future just doesn't matter. He's a shallow golf course developer and see the entire world that way, to his everlasting discredit.
And the GOP is right behind him.
People public lands users, and that includes ranchers who will get completely screwed if Deseret Mike Lee and his ilk have his way, follow.1
These people have no Land Ethic.
Bill Allemand: Allemand is from a large ranching family in the state but has claimed not to be part of the ranching operations himself. Nonetheless he showed his hand by sponsoring a really punitive hunting trespass bill that failed last session.
That should preclude him from being reelected. He's an enemy of sportsmen.
He's also a Dixiecrat.
And he's extremely rude. His first run for office was characterized by outrageous comments about his opponent and he's shown a real temper since being elected. Most recently, he stated outrageous things against a Deputy Sheriff who arrested him for drunk driving in Johnson County.2 A cutting editorial by Susan Stubson on his drunk driving escapade is well worth reading.
On Allemand:
Rep. Bill Allemand asks judge to rescind court-ordered alcohol testing during upcoming legislative session: The Midwest lawmaker is contesting his DUI charge following his arrest last month in Johnson County.
The answer to that ought to be a hard no.
Harriet Hageman: Hageman is from a large ranching/farming family in southeast Wyoming. Her father was the sponsor of an effort to privatize wildlife when he was in the legislature. Hageman aggressively backed an effort to transfer Wyoming's Federal lands to the state and responded to criticism of those who opposed her by basically calling them dumb.
This past term her family homestead burned to the ground in a year that's been extremely warm and devoid of moisture. There were poignant comments about it, including from her, which tend to demonstrate the agricultural community's absolute refusal to read what is really in front of their face, climate wise. It's ironic, in that even university educated agriculturalist like Hageman, who depend on animal science daily, refuse to believe that any other science is valid.
Jacob Wasserburger: Wasserburger came up with this bad idea, but it sounds a lot like he's been sitting around with Mike Lee, the Senator from Deseret
Going Feral: Lawmaker Unveils Bill To Sell Between 30,000 And 2...: Another moronic idea by a Wyoming Republican, a party which seems to draw from the endless well of bad ideas. Wasserburger is going right on...
He's signed on to the no prescription for Ivermectin act as well, these two things indicating that he's hanging out with, in not in, the Freedom Caucus. A little digging reveals that Wasserburger is from a Niobrara County ranch and has been practicing law since 2008, at which he's bounced around a lot, including having once worked for a major Democratic politician and a really good Republican one. He did a stint in government work as well.
Original post: January 20, 2026.
Updates: January 24, 2026, January 27, 2026.
Allies of Ignorance. Trump Fellow Travelers and Dixiecrats.
I suspect that some of these people probably really love Trump, while others are just opportunistic and pitching to ignorant Wyoming voters, telling them what they know they want to hear. Either way, they shouldn't be voted for, either because they believe the nonsense they're spouting, or because they're willing to lie to obtain office.
Some of these folks are members of the largely carpetbagging Wyoming Freedom Caucus as well, which definitely should disqualify them. They're not running for office in 2026 Wyoming but 1966 Alabama. It's estimated that 42 members of the House, which has only 62 seats, in the Wyoming legislature are occupied by Freedom Caucus members, but it is an estimate as some of them will not openly declare their membership showing that they have some reservations about it.
Something Wyoming voters should know is that unlike other caucuses, once a legislator joins the WFC he or she can sit on his legislative rear and do nothing, as the WFC does all the work, including drafting bills it wants and telling the potted WFC plant what to say and think. The money, and at least some of the bill drafting, comes from outside of the state. The Freedom Caucus is effectively an alien, that is carpetbagging, force in the state, in the true original sense of the meaning of the word carpetbagger.
Megen Degenfelder: Degenfelder is the current Superintendent of Public Instruction who has announced for Governor.. She's clearly very far right wing, but she doesn't appear to be a full blown MAGA adherent. Still, she received King Donny's endorsement and wrapped herself in it, and for that reason alone should be rejected.
I do have a question, however, based on her time in office, as to how much of the MAGA nonsense she really believes. As one of the Board of State Land Commissioners she hasn't been a fellow traveler with Gray, and the evidence suggests that absolutely nobody on that Board can stand Gray. The Governor clearly does not, but it doesn't really look like anyone else does either. And Degenfelder hasn't come out with any of the really extreme crap that Gray has, or even that Cindy Hill had. Given that, she might be on the Trump Train in a boxcar ready to jump off when and if things begin to derail. So I'll cut her a little slack, albeit very, very, little.
In this race, so far, it looks to me that Barlow is the best candidate.
Chuck Gray: Gray's a carpetbagging opportunist who took advantage of lies to obtain the position of Secretary of State where he's been a general pain in the ass. He's not from here, he's not of here, and he should be sent packing as a disagreeable asshole. He literally obtained his office mounted on a steed of lies.
Gray, I'll note, was one of the founders of the Freedom Caucus and perhaps because of that hasn't been asked the questions or subject to sideways glances that some in his situation might have been, which is interesting.
Ken Pendergraft: A member of the Freedom Caucus who voted to slash U.W.'s budget.
The Freedom Caucus is pretty much the Freakishly Dumb Caucus and basically opposes education. Educated people, it turns out, tend to be moderate and don't believe that global warming is a fib, or that the Earth is 4,000 years old, or that Christianity somehow started in the US with an Evangelical Free Church. So education is bad, in their view.
Jeremy Haroldson: A member of the Freedom Caucus who voted to slash U.W. budget.
Jacob Wasserburger: As we suspected, Wasserburger is part of the WFC.
And some more:
Ann Lucas (Cheyenne):
Darin McCann (Rock Springs):
Joel Guggenmos (Riverton):
Jayme Lien (Casper):
Gary Brown (Cheyenne):
Steve Johnson (Cheyenne):
Joe Webb (Lyman):
Paul Hoeft (Cody):
Robert Wharff (Evanston):
David Giralt, who is running for the House solely on a promise to be the biggest Trump sycophant imaginable.
Updated on February 27, 2026.
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The Freedom Caucus thinks that they are Republicans, but they are not. They're Jeffersonian Democrats, i.e., Dixiecrats.
Original post: January 20, 2026. Updates: January 28, 2028. February 2, 2026.
Carpetbaggers
This may seem like an odd thing to post in this category, but this film, which I hate, really frames the Wyoming mindset in some ways, even though the novel from which its taken was set in Appalachia. Clayboy's father and eight uncles may have fallen in love here, but Clayboy is going to abandon one of the most beautiful spots on earth and the two hot chicks pursuing him so he can go to university, learn to write, and sit in an office smoking cigarettes behind a typewriter because he's convinced that must be superior to what he already has.
Wyoming has always had a transient population and, additionally, a pretty pronounced history of self doubt and even self loathing. For that reason, we're pretty willing as a rule to elect imports who claim to be like us, even though we know that they aren't. We really think they're better than us.
Right now, for example, we have Dr. John Barrasso who isn't a Wyomingite but sort of pretends to be one, or at least was up until becoming the Senate Majority Whip. He's a Pennsylvanian. He's a Boomer so chances are that this is his last hurrah before he retires and gets the heck out of here.
We've added a note above about the funding of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, which pretty much qualifies the caucus itself, if not every single members, as the Wyoming Foreign Carpetbaggers.
Chuck Gray: Gray is a Californian who shares nothing in common with anyone whatsoever in the state. He should be sent back to California.
Indeed, one of the most pathetic things about Gray campaigns is when they dress the diminutive little guy up and try to film him in Wyoming. There he is, looking at an oil rig, and looking mighty uncomfortable, and so on.
Joseph Kibler: Kibler is a recent import from California, and should just go home. He's running for Governor.
Original post: January 20, 2026.
Updates: January 24, 2026,
Bottle Babies and Stahlhelm
In recent years Wyoming has seen people run for office touting their experience as a veteran. They basically fall into two groups.
One group were career servicemen who sucked on the government tit their entire working lives and now have moved into Wyoming or have come back to Wyoming after decades of being gone and, uniformly, declare they hate the government and know how to fix it. Their hatred didn't keep them from competing in the free job economy with the rest of us, however.
They didn't run their military careers like they claim they'll run the state. I.e, they didn't come in and say "I hate the military with the red hot passion of a thousand burning suns and I'm going to destroy it!".
The other group are men who run simply on having been a veteran. Eh? Lee Harvey Oswald was a veteran. This group has nothing much more to say other than "I'm a veteran". So what? Lots of people are veterans. This is the Stahlhelm group.
Brent Bien is a bottle baby. He was a career Marin Corps officer and had a really distinguished career. Now he's back in the state and seeks to apply that experience, which is wholly irrelevant to running the state, to wrecking government.
Original post: January 20, 2026.
Democrats in delusion
On this category, let me be clear. I want more Democrats to run, but I want solid Democrats to run. While its a long shot, I think a centrist Democratic Party in the state, which we used to have, and which gave us multiple Governors, could gain seats, including some important seats. Indeed, I'm surprised that some names that used to appear haven't re-appeared so far.
The first thing I'm going to note is that the Democrats need to avoid wrapping themselves in bloody surgical towels and rainbow flags, but they just can't seem to avoid doing it. They should take a lesson from one of their own recent events:
Affordability, healthcare and public lands echo as top concerns at Dem listening sessions
But instead of that, they'll end up talking about "reproductive rights" and "gender determination" and completely ax themselves.
What the Democratic Party should do in Wyoming is flat out instruct its candidates not to take hardcore positions on these issues. Ideally, they ought to run a moderate prolife Democrat, which would be something the GOP wouldn't know how to handle. If a Democratic candidate went to a house seat debate and took a position to the right of the Republican on the typical social issues, they'd be caught flat footed and resort to name calling. Better yet, if asked about abortion, and a Democratic candidate said "I'm flat out against it, and why has Donald Trump come out being sort of for it?" the Republicans wouldn't know what to do.
But, nope, that won't happen.
Anyhow, while we want Democrats to run, and want third party candidates to run, some will end up on this list as they're actually sucking air out of the room which shouldn't be.
Stewart McAdoo fits this category. McAdoo is a Democrat who is running against Art Washut in House District 36. Washut is a real conservative (and very conservative at that), and not a populist Freedom Caucus member. Losing him would be a disaster for Wyoming. I've never heard of him, but he appears to be an import to the state, which might place him in another category as well.
Original post: January 22, 2026.
Footnotes
1. While I know that it will happen no time soon, it really needs to become the case that lands that went into private hands through a Homestead Act can't go into corporate or absentee hands.
2. According to news reports Allemand admitted to the sheriff's deputy that he drank and drive, in order to address "stress". In the papers he came out just like he did in the campaign, which is to say as a boisterous asshole. That alone should put an end to his political career.
Most of his business career, we'd note, was spent in Kansas. He ought to just go back to Kansas.
Related Posts:
Blog Mirror: WYOMING: IT’S TIME TO TAKE OUR GOVERNMENT BACK
Thursday, February 26, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 120th Edition. The smoke edition
Throughout the Epstein files saga, we've repeatedly heard that "there's nothing to implicate Donald Trump. . . "
Well now there is.
It's been affirmatively revealed that the FBI scrubbed interviews of a woman who accused Trump and Epstein of abusing her when she was an underaged teenager.
As we've noted in a recent edition of this series, we've been told that we should not doubt the women.
Did Trump screw underage teenage girls? We don't know, but at this point, there's more than enough of a suggestion here to raise the question. Frankly, given the people he was hanging out with, their proclivities, and his own demonstrated ones, it would be surprising if he didn't cross that line. He'd be like a vegetarian that was hanging out repeatedly in the butcher shop. Perhaps more accurately, he'd be like a guy with a taste for drinking declining as they didn't have his favorite brand.
We don't know, of course. But we do know what his behavior is with adult women and that has hardly been chaste. We also know that it's been scientifically demonstrated that men who reach a sex partner tally of eight start looking below 18 years old for them, and Trump is at an approximate third of that number just in wives. If we add Stormy Daniels, we know he's at least at half that number, and only a fool would think the number isn't higher.
We can be confident, however, that this is just going to be ignored, at least for the time being. It'll be another thing that will be discussed in Trump tell all books after he's dead. None of the topics that will be revealed will be pleasant. We can have some hope that, as the Epstein victims were all so young, that something resembling the truth might ultimately be revealed about what happened to them. Having said that, the truth on John F. Kennedy's dalliances took decades to really fully come out.
We might also note that Mimi Alford (née Beardsley) was 19 years old when John F. Kennedy started screwing her, and Kennedy at least publicly pretended to be a moral man, even if his affairs demonstrate otherwise. The implications for the affair being revealed in the public would have been devastating to Kennedy. Likewise, Harding's affair with Nan Britton started when she was about 20 years old, and Britton was known to be the second mistress Harding had. The point in both instances is that cheaters not only cheat, they cheat downwards in age.
Melania Trump was 28 when she started dating a 52 year old Trump. Even now, outside of the wealthy, that would normally be regarded as weird.
So, did Trump hang around where the teenage entrées were on the menu, or was he never offered the menu? Maybe. But by now, certainly the questions are legitimate.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 119th Edition. Comments on Culture. A Galwaywoman's comment on men and women, Rubio's comments on Western Civilization, and Hegseth hosts a Christian Nationalist.
Nolan Finley: It’s time to end the State of the Union
Nolan Finely beat me to the punch:
He is quite correct. The show of the State of the Union Speech, based on the reporting, would have been more proper for Baathist Iran, North Korea, or Nazi Germany. It wasn't a real State of the Union Address.
There hasn't been one for some time.
Television destroyed what was once a serious endeavor. If you look at old State of the Union addresses, particularly when they were still written, they were serious matters. Now they have all the dignity of a pole dancer performing at a strip club, and they're getting worse.
Any honest State of the Union delivered since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic would have to start off with "the State of the Union is grave" or words to that effect. An honest one now would have to start off with "the State of the Union is gravely imperiled" and go on from there. The United States is in really bad shape, not all due to Donald Trump, but with everything about Donald Trump making the nation's condition much, much, worse.
The nation is hugely polarized. About 40% of the nation have fallen under the spell of an unintelligent but effective salesman. Hatreds long thought in the past have revived in an aggressive form. Congress has completely failed to perform its job, something it started to do at least as far back as the 1980s. An attack on education and science that began under the Ronald Reagan administration has produced a drove of ignorant ill informed voters. Ignoring a growing immigration crisis that started in the 1970s fueled massive Rust Belt discontent. Over funding an all volunteer military has resulted in the creation of a post Cold War military class that's become an a danger to the nation itself. Ignoring global warming is imperiling the entire plant while lining the pocked of an oligarch class that's rapidly depriving the same Rust Belt class that's now supporting it of any middle class way of making a living. Ignoring science has also lead to a complete inability to understand basic human biological facts.
This country is an utter disaster, and it's lead right now by a stupid man whose intellect is crashing into dementia.
Trump is a mentally ill man to start with. Raised in a family that managed to avoid serving in times of war and whose wealth was started off by a German immigrant (ironically) who engaged in the sex trade, he's always been a self centered man focused on greed and engaging in lust. In his dementia, he cannot see the world in any manner other than acquisition, and believes his own propaganda about his having a unique understanding of the "art of the deal". He's the laughing stock of the globe, and at a some point fairly soon in the United States, he'll be regarded as the worst president in the nation's history and the worst human being to ever occupy the Oval Office. If there's anything redeeming to Trump's reign at all it will be that his profoundly bad occupation of that office has demonstrated how severely various reforms to the Constitution are needed.
Be that as it may, the nation is not going to emerge from Trump the nation it was. It will be a second rate nation, and that will be due to him, and those who served him. The US will crawl back to the family of Western nations, but it will just be one of them, not the leader of them. That's now fallen to the European Union.
When that occurs the millions who followed Trump will deny it, including some of those working for him now . Vance and Rubio will be two who will assert that they were never Trumpites.
On that, we digress. State of the Union addresses were once written and they were much better when they were. Those days should return. They were not intended to be an perverted administration's stripping performance while lustful inebriated fans cheered the stripper, which is what they now are. Today's state of the union addresses are embarrassing in the extreme and not something a mature dignified nation would do, but then, right now, we are not a mature dignified nation.
State of the Union addresses should go back to being written. If they are delivered orally, they should be given during the work day as they should reflect serious work. And, frankly, there should be a mechanism, and a severe one at that, that if they are dishonest, there should be an immediate impact. For example, although now it would have no legal impact, immediately after any oral State of the Union address there should be a vote of confidence. If a simple majority votes note, the authority of the President should be suspended until he can come back in front of Congress and the nation and not act like a buffoon.
That would require, of course, a serious Congress as well, which we also lack.
Tuesday, February 26, 1901. Boxer executions.
Boxer leaders Chi-hsui and Hsu-cheng-yu were publicly beheaded in Beijing in front of a crowd of about 10,000.
Japanese Col. Goro Shiba, the Japanese legation's military attaché, treated the two condemned men to champagne before turning them over to the Chinese Board of Punishments. Chi-hsui told him "I do not know what I have done to make me deserving of death, but if beheading me will make the foreign troops evacuate Peking and my Emperor return, I am satisfied to die. I will die a patriot."
Reports from Bombay held that 400 people had died from the plague in two days.
Last edition:
Saturday, February 26, 1876. The Japan Korea Treaty of Amity.
Japan and Korean signed the Japan Korea Treaty of Amity, formally ending Korea's status as a tributary state of the Chinese Qing Dynasty, but giving Japan special rights in an independent Korea.
Last edition:
Monday, February 15, 1876. Texas adopts its current constitution.
Wednesday, February 25, 2026
Friday, February 25, 1916. Fort Douamont.
Saturday, February 25, 1911. Battle of Casas Grandes and Kelley Creek.
In the one instance of his acting as a field commander, Francisco Madero successfully oversaw revolutionaries in the Battle of Casas Grandes.
Madero, however, was almost killed, after which he stayed away from the front.
Shoshones under Mike Daggett, fleeing a killing for which they feared they would not receive proper justice, and after having butchered some cattle, were run to ground and killed at Kelley Creek, Nevada in one of the last Indian engagements of what might be regarded as the Indian Wars. Eight Shoshones were killed, of which two were children. Most of the party was related to Mike Daggett, who was killed in the battle. Of four members of the Daggett family who survived, all children and grandchildren, three died within a year of disease.
Daggett's daughter Heney (Louise, 17), and two of his grandchildren, Hattie (Harriet Mosho, 4))(left) and Cleveland (Mosho, 8).
It was one of the last "massacres" of the Indian Wars.
Berber chiefs meeting at Agourai determined to assassinate Berber pasha Thami El Glaoui and Grand Vizier Muhammad al-Muqri, to take place at a gathering of the leaders on March 14.
It was a Saturday.
Last edition
Monday, February 25, 1901. U.S. Steel.
U.S. Steel was incorporated by J. P. Morgan.
Last edition:
Friday, February 22, 1901. Interrupted Boers.
Tuesday, February 24, 2026
Thursday, February 24, 1916. Does prohibition prohibit?
The Germans captured Beaumont-en-Verdunois.
Today In Wyoming's History: February 24: 1916 The Cheyenne Men's Club discussed whether Prohibition "does or does not prohibit". I'm not sure how to take that, but apparently with the looming move towards Prohibition coming on, they took up the topic. Attribution: Wyoming State Historic Preservation Office.
Last edition:
Tuesday, February 22, 1916. German advance at Verdun.
Sunday, February 22, 2026
The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 4. The Held Up Edition
February 16, 2026
TA Ranch.
The invaders arrived and confident of the success of their mission, as well as the mission itself, detrained and headed out, certain of victory.
And then the unexpected intervened. They didn't know the climate of where they were, and ran into delay. And soon they ran into diversion as well, thinking that with limited time they could still stop to act on detours.
The locals rallied, held them up, and started gunning them down.
Week two of the 2026 legislature commences, the carpetbaggers held up and besieged, as has happened before.
February 17, 2024
A warning about the stupidity of gutting the state's tax system:
Not that most of the Freedom Caucus, which has a "get off my lawn" type of attitude, and which lives in a Southern fantasyland, seems to really care, or so it seems. I guess we'll see.
I will note, however, that fire board lives out in the county and was put in place by rural voters who voted for Trump, and I'll bet most of them did as well. The Freedom Caucus is the same Dixiecrat type of voter that voted in the Freedom Caucus. So, they're getting just what they voted for.
And the scandal grows:
Years ago a very senior member of the legislature told me that the far right was now buying the legislature. What Bextel did was monumentally stupid, she has to be the most tone-deaf person in the state, but it likely was not illegal. The implications are serious, however. The "Wyoming" Freedom Caucus is heavy funded by out of state money or, in this case Carpetbagger Cash.
The item here, broken by the Jackson Hole News & Guide:
CHEYENNE—The Jackson man who wrote the campaign donation checks at the center of a growing controversy in the Wyoming Capitol says two were intended for the Speaker of the House and the former head of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.Whether or not Speaker Chip Neiman, R-Hulett, or Rep. John Bear, R-Gillette, received or accepted the checks could not be determined by press time. Neither lawmaker responded to requests for comment before publication.
And:
Freedom Caucus lawmaker Bear accepted controversial campaign check from activist; other legislators remain mum: Gillette Republican Rep. John Bear said he accepted a check from Bextel, but not on the House floor.
The truth of the matter is that when this sort of political thought came into the state, it came in from the outside and was backed by outside people. Some of the early proponents of the Freedom Caucus nonsense, like Secretary of State Chuck Gray, and Bear, are outsiders.
Bextel, originally from Arkansas (of course) has done the state a big favor by exposing this sort of behavior.
Former legislators reactions:
This adds a serious new wrinkle to the story:
Bextel has said publicly that she was distributing lawful campaign checks on behalf of a Teton County donor, and that she did so in person because she knew she’d be in Cheyenne.It also happened two days before the reported recipients on the House side, among others, voted in favor of introducing a bill Bextel has championed.
I still very much doubt that this meets the criteria necessary to be considered bribery, but there is a bit of smoke there. Added to that, some of the cash recipients are not campaigning this year.
So what was that bill that the cash donor had an interest in? That's discussed here:
Wyoming’s ‘Checkgate’ is all about the Freedom Caucus’ political games - WyoFile: GOP activist who handed out money to lawmakers on House floor claims she’s leveling the playing field for conservatives, writes columnist Kerry Drake.
As stated in the article:
The incident became a news story on Wednesday during debate on an anti-affordable housing bill that Bextel was lobbying lawmakers to support. Rep. Mike Yin, D-Jackson, questioned voting on House Bill 141, “Fifth Amendment Defense Act,” when one of its prime supporters was seen distributing checks to lawmakers on the floor two days earlier. But he did not name Bextel or any legislators who received checks.
While I've abstained from posing the text of bills on these threads this year, this one deserves a look:
Fifth Amendment Protection Act.
Sponsored by: Representative(s) Bear, Haroldson, Heiner, Knapp, Locke and Neiman and Senator(s) Hicks, Hutchings, Ide, Kolb, McKeown, Pearson, Salazar and Steinmetz
A BILL
for
AN ACT relating to cities, towns and counties; prohibiting cities, towns and counties from imposing fees or conditions related to housing on residential or commercial development as specified; specifying applicability; and providing for an effective date.
Be It Enacted by the Legislature of the State of Wyoming:
Section 1. W.S. 15‑1‑612 and 18‑5‑209 are created to read:
15‑1‑612. Prohibitions on fees and conditions related to housing on residential or commercial development.
No governing body of a city or town shall impose a monetary fee, nonmonetary condition or other concession related to the provision of workforce housing, unmet housing needs or affordable housing on residential or commercial development within the jurisdiction of the governing body.
18‑5‑209. Prohibitions on fees and conditions related to housing on residential or commercial development.
No board of county commissioners shall impose a monetary fee, nonmonetary condition or other concession related to the provision of workforce housing, unmet housing needs or affordable housing on residential or commercial development within the jurisdiction of the county.
Section 2.
(a) This act shall apply to all applications for permits submitted for residential or commercial development on or after July 1, 2026.
(b) Nothing in this act shall be construed to modify or impair existing contracts or obligations regarding residential or commercial development and the imposition of monetary fees, nonmonetary conditions or other concessions executed before July 1, 2026.
Section 3. This act is effective July 1, 2026.
So the money came from Teton County big bucks, which to at least some extent, must now want the servant class living in Teton County. Let them commute from Driggs, apparently.
Can't have that riff raff living in Jackson, now can we?
Every recipient of the cash donation should resign. . . but none of them will. The Legislature, for that matter, out to censure them by sidelining them for the remainder of the session. I.e., as they have to right to refuse to seat, they ought to send them to the benches and let them cool their jets at home this session.
And this does stink. A wealthy carpetbagger from Teton County gives checks to a carpetbagger from Teton County to pass out to certain favorites as a housing bill principally impacting Teton County (but also Natrona County) is debated.
I doubt the District Attorney from the 1st Judicial District will do anything with that. I don't think I would, but it looks pretty weird.
Speaking of Gray:
Senate panel advances bill to increase accountability for commercial registered agents: More than 830,000 LLC filings generated almost $60M for Wyoming last year, but secrecy raises concern about fraud, scams
That must keep his stamping fingers busy like crazy.
Speaking of buying votes, Lummis spoke at the legislature and spoke on Trumpbucks.
Lummis Announces Kraken Will Fund Trump Accounts For Every Wyoming Newborn In 2026
That's not buying votes, but Kraken is trying to buy good will.
Part of the problem is that data centers are driving up electrical demand like crazy. A sane country, that was doing this, would be building nuclear plants like crazy, but we're not sane right now. Instead, Trump is backing Dying Dirty Coal.
February 18, 2026
This is probably the first time that Carpetbagging Chuck has been silent on anything since he he showed up in Casper with luggage. Usually he'd be out blaming the left wing radicals he claims are lurking around every single corner in the state conspiring against decency, apple pie, and poor old Donny Trump.
Here he's shut his trap.
Hmmm. . . .
Well after all of his blathering if he doesn't condemn what happened, he's a hypocrite.
But then Bextel hosted a fundraiser for her fellow carpetbagger back in January. It was closed to the press. . .
February 20, 2026
Wyoming House Rejects Adding Extraterrestrials, Animals, To Sex Books Ban
"Check Gate" has really busted wide open, putting the WFC on the spot after they condemned accusations that proved to be true. Carbon County's GOP has called for the resignation of some members of their own party. Frankly Bear and Niemann, who haven't been asked to resign yet, should resign or be removed by the legislature.
Chuck Gray remains silent for the first time that he carried his carpetbag across the state line.
February 22, 2026
So we're ten days in to a 21 day session and the House is way behind on the budget, the one thing they have to actually accomplish.
The Confederate Caucus turns out not to be very effective at getting things done, in a budget session, and so things aren't for the most part, getting done. Meanwhile the drama of Freedom Caucus getting checks from Rebecca Bextel on behalf of some moneybucks guy goes on, with the thing excuse being a claim that nothing wrong was done and it isn't illegal.
It likely isn't illegal, but it doesn't look good.
And so ends week two.
Last edition:
The 2026 Wyoming Legislature, Part 3. The Confederate Legislature Edition.
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