Let's hope the vote is no. He was a terrible choice.
Ostensibly exploring the practice of law before the internet. Heck, before good highways for that matter.
Monday, May 11, 2026
Sunday, May 10, 2026
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 135th Edition. Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus
I've been saying for awhile, and statements like this really demonstrate it:
It looks like President Trump has a better understanding of what the Bible teaches than the Pope.
Robert Jeffress, senior pastor of the 14,000-member First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas on Fox News.
That comment was stupid. But then, he's called Catholicism a cult.
The Catholic Church is an Apostolic Church. It was founded by Christ. John Smyth, an Englishman, founded the Baptists in 1609.
Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus is a Catholic doctrine. There is no salvation outside the Church. None the less, the Church holds that those who did not come to Christ innocently, or those who did not come to the Church innocently, can be saved, which operates again through the Church. You can't be held responsible for what you innocently didn't know.
But what about here?
We're in the death throws of the reformation. Things Smyth could get away with believing in 1609 there's no excuse to believe now, other than invincible ignorance.
Being a pastor of a 14,000 member church puts a pretty heavy burden on you and your soul for remaining ignorant.
Smyth is also a Fox News contributor, which really figures.
As an irony here, although one he will not be capable, right now, of appreciating, Smyth has gone after Mormons, Jews, and Muslims as well. In normal times, he would not have a national television audience. He would have a local Dallas one as Texas is part of the former Confederacy and the Baptist rose in the wake of the Southern defeat in 1865, replacing the Episcopal Church in the South as the dominant religion culturally. Nationally, however, picking on Jews, Muslims, Catholics and Mormons would get you booted off of television.
Religious aspects of this aside, this brings up a political one I've warned about here repeatedly.
Catholics voting for MAGA candidates are voting for a group that not only doesn't regard the Church highly, they don't believe it's a Christian religion at all. People like Lyin' Chuck Gray, Reid Rasner and Megan Degenfelder, who are Catholics who run as MAGA are making a political bargain that will cause them, as it seems to have already for Lyin' Chuck to decide between their faiths, and their political fortunes. Degenfelder has signs up all over which say "Endorsed by President Trump".
They should say "Endorsed by Blasphemous Donald Trump".
And this isn't merely esoteric. We're in the same position now that Catholic Germans were in the 1932 German election (and the Catholics in fact went for Hitler much less than German protestants did). There's really going to be no good "um, well, the other guy . . . " excuse here. The far right Evangelical edge of the Trump coalition isn't even pretending not to hate Catholics much anymore.
And what about Mormons?
Mormons include a heavy MAGA contingent, although the only really devout Mormons I know here locally right now are heavy duty Never Trumpers, and openly so. But then you have guys like Deseret Mike Lee who come pretty close to viewing Trump positively in some sort of creepy religious terms. Deep in the Jello Belt it's always been the case that there was a sort of ignorant conservatism in some quarters, and in the last 16 years, in spite of guys like Mitt Romney, it's really come out.
Trump and Islam is simply laughable as a joke. In the last election Trump drew a fair amount of Islamic support because Muslims were so mad about Joe Biden's support of Israel. Well, they got what the should have expected. The only person Trump loves more than Putin (and of course Trump) is Benjamin Netanyahu and as a result we've supported genocide in Gaza, a war in Lebanon and we helped Israel attack Iran and we can't get out of it. I suspect that most Muslims are voting for the Democrats next go around, just like most Hispanics will be (and in both instances, this really gives the Democrats a chance to evolve away from their sea of blood positions).
And this sort of thing should even be a revelation for Jews of all stripes, although I think they're more awake to what MAGA is than most. The strong Trump support for Netanyahu comes in part because Netanyahu is good at playing Trump, much like Putin is. But it also comes from people like Hegseth or Huckabee, who have a radical Protestant view of Israel and want to bring about the Second Coming of Christ basically by force, which they see current events as an opportunity in which to do so. Put another way, do you really want to get in the car with somebody who wants to drive you to a giant gun fight?
Donald Trump, of course, is sort of beyond all of this. Trump isn't any sort of serious Christian and we don't really know if he has any religious beliefs at all. Most of his life has been spent chasing cash through real estate development and his hobbies have been golf and chasing tail. Christians are just a convenient vehicle for him. If the Sultan of Oman offered him a bigger better airplane tomorrow if he'd convert to Islam, and remind him that Muslims can have more than one wife, it wouldn't surprise me a bit if he signed on. His personal conduct actually squares better with Islam than Christianity, which is after all a religion focused on the poor and duty.
In the end, all of this is going to fall apart.
Christians who aligned with Trump, just like Muslims and Mormons who did, are going to have to pay the cost. It'll be different for each. For Muslims, well their fellows are playing through blood right now. Jews will pay by the backlash that's already started.
For Christians, it'll be different, depending upon where their allegiance lay. For the ignorant members of the American Civil Religion, and for the hardcore Evangelical right, this will be the beginning of an end of an era that started in April 1865, when the South fell and the Evangelical far right stepped into its own. For the Protestant world in general, this will accelerate the death of the Reformation.
For the Catholic and Orthodox Christians who supported Trump, how could you be so blind?
Nonetheless, this will be a good thing for the Catholic and Orthodox. A delusion that started in 1960 that you could be fully American and fully Catholic, or Orthodox, has ended. National Conservatism will end with it.
And that will be a good thing.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 134th Edition. Paying the cost of failed Reconstruction.
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 134th Edition. Paying the cost of failed Reconstruction.
Two related items:
Tennessee's Redistricting Fight and the Long Shadow of the Civil War
and this one:
The Confederacy rises again
The biggest political mistake the US has ever made was not engage in radical reconstruction after the American Civil War. To have served in an officer, or frankly even as a volunteer, in the Confederate Army should have been regarded as fully treasonous and never forgiven. Those who did should have been tried and given heavy sentences. Men like Robert E. Lee should never have been allowed to walk the streets as free men again.
Slave holders, no matter how small they were, should have had to compensate their former slaves or their decedents heavily. On the principal that the land belongs to he who works it, a means of transferring agricultural land to the former slaves should have been devised.
This is, I'd note, the second time the country has gone through this Lost Cause crap. The cause of the Southern States during the Civil War ranks right up with that of Nazi Germany as one of the worst causes people have every fought for. The South should have been made to hang its head in shame, as the Germans were after World War Two. And yet, here we go again.
If there's any good thing about any of this is that the rise of the Lost Cause yielded to the Civil Rights Era. Americans thought they'd finally one the promise of the country, although Liberals and Progressives certainly took that claimed victory beyond what it meant and should have mean in other ways. Everyone has been reminded of that, now that the fulfillment of the result of Reagan's Southern Strategy has been afflicted upon the nation in form of the Trump Administration.
Last edition:
CliffsNotes of the Zeitgeist, 133d Edition. What happened to that Board of Peace?
Wednesday, May 10, 1911. Madero takes Juarez in spite of himself.
Federal forces at Juarez surrendered to the forces of Pascual Orozco and Pancho Villa, who had attacked the city in defiance of Francisco Madero.
This was the first major loss of territory to Maderistas, although the attack on the city was in defiance of orders from Madero. Tijuana had fallen the day prior to Magonistas.
Last edition:
Tuesday, May 9, 1911. Magonista rebels captured Tijuana.
Wednesday, May 10, 1876. Opening of the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine.
The Centennial International Exhibition, the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine, commenced in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Events like this use to be huge.
On the opening day Alexander Graham Bell presented a paper on communicating musical sounds by wire (telephone).
Last edition:
Tuesday, May 9, 1876. Windy City.
The Best Post of the Week of May 3, 2026.
The best posts of the Week of May 3, 2026.
Wednesday, May 3, 1876. The Emperor of Brazil travels into Wyoming.
Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. Economics in the Dementia Ward.
Saturday, May 9, 2026
Movies in History. Platoon Leader
I keep finding out that there are Vietnam War movies I've never seen. That's probably because a lot of them aren't that good and are therefore obscure. Still, with a movie as bad as The Green Berets being well known, you'd think you'd have heard of them all.
This one was on cable, and I'd never heard of it, so I watched it.
It's pretty bad.
Filmed in 1988, it's apparently based on an actual memoir, but it sort of comes across as an effort to film something like Platoon, but where all the Americans are admirable and on a much smaller budget.
The basic plot follows a young officer as he tried to gain the trust of his men, a theme that's been filmed a zillion times. In this instance, the young lieutenant is assigned to an impossibly badly designed very tiny defense position out in the bush, whose only purpose is to guard a nearby village.
From the outpost, he leads patrols. He's always steadfast. Three career NCOs help him, the distrusting long time sergeant, the sympathetic Christian African American sergeant, and the battle hardened corporal. Back somewhere is his commanding officer, a rather old and crusty major. Officers occasionally pop in to check on the post. Pretty much 100% of the characters are cartoons. Eventually there's a climatic battle. . . like Platoon.
In terms of material details, the film isn't horrible, but like Platoon it features a CAR 15 in the hands of an NCO. Platoon seems to have created the myth that this was common. The same NCO carriers a very large frame revolver, which actually isn't impossible. All of the enemy combatants seem to be NVA regulars for some reason, although they're indicated to be VC regulars, which doesn't make any sense.
Not really worth watching.
Tuesday, May 9, 1911. Magonista rebels captured Tijuana.
Only a handful of Mexican nations fought in what was effectively an invasion by American and International Socialist in support of the Socialist Magonistas.
The constitution of Unification or Death (Уједињење или смрт), the Black Hand (Црна рука, Crna ruka) secret Serbian military society was signed.
Last edition:
Monday, May 8, 1911. Birth of U.S. Naval Aviation, Fighting at Tijuana, birth of Robert Johnson.
Thursday, May 9, 1901. Blue Thursday.
Blue Thursday saw massive panic in stock markets.
The first Parliament of Australia opened.
Lizzie van Zyl whose emaciated body would become the symbol of British concentration camp atrocities, died at age seven
Last edition:
Tuesday, May 7, 1901. Gary Cooper born.
Tuesday, May 9, 1876. Windy City.
Chicago was referred to as The Windy City for the first known time, in an article by the Cincinnati Enquirer. The headline was:
THAT WINDY CITY. Some Freaks of the Last Chicago Tornado.
Locally at least, Casper Wyoming is sometimes called "Wind City".
Ueno Park in Tokyo was dedicated.
Nikolaus Otto working with Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach started the world’s first internal-combustion engine that efficiently burned fuel directly in a piston chamber.
Last edition:
Sunday, May 7, 1876. First Black Hills sermon, maybe.
The 2026 Election, 10th Edition. The Setting the stage for a Pyrrhic Victory edition.
We start off this edition with what might be a little light at the end of a tunnel:
GOP Senate Challengers Emerge To Take On Harriet Hageman In Primary
I'll note that the LinkedIn article is the first really good article on Skovgard's views that I've seen. Personally, I'm favoring Mead.
And something to remember:
Hageman's Senate Run Reignites Criticisms Over Public Lands
And then there's this:
Wyoming Republican Party plans to buck law and endorse candidates ahead of critical primary
The GOP is really playing with fire here. It's correct that as a private organization the government shouldn't tell it who it can and cannot endorse. But then, the laws of the state shouldn't give a preferential position to a private organization, let alone a political party. As a "major party" it has a role in nominating replacement for some positions and has pride of place in primaries. When challenged in court, and it could be, this might be the first step towards an open primary in Wyoming. That is, one with no parties noted at all.
In other races, the amount of money being violently hurled by Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner at the House race is simply nuts. Weekly flyers now arrive, printed obviously by the same company, by both candidates, and television ads appear constantly. Frankly Rasner's television ads are a little better than Gray's, the latter of which basically amount to a swooning expression of love, albeit by a man who comes across as so angry its unhinged, and absolute fealty to Donald Trump. Rasner has, in my view, less than zero chance of winning the seat, but if he has any success at all it will be due to his media blitz. At any rate, both campaigns are largely self funded, which gives rise to the "well, it's their money" comment. None the less, the expenditure of this sort of money is obscene and is reason enough that neither man should win office . . . any office.
The Star Tribune ran an article about the Democratic candidate taking on Art Washut, one of the best members of the Wyoming legislature. Stewart McAdoo turns out to be a South Carolinian, so we'd put him in the carpetbagger category, and he's running on the predictable Democratic seas of blood support of infanticide.
April 30, 2026
Protect Wyoming ran an ad this morning in the Tribune against Bill Allemand.
Hunters and fishermen should really oppose Allemand, who following the corner crossing ruling of the Federal Court sponsored a Draconian bill on hunting trespassing. While he claims no present interest in it, he's from a well known Powder River Basin Wyoming ranching family, a region of the state that features very limited land access. He's fighting a charge for drunk driving in Johnson County presently.
He's being challenged by Bar Nunn Mayor Peter Boyer, who got cross wise in a Bar Nunn town council meeting according to news reports. Allemand quixotically adamantly opposed a proposed nuclear generator project north of the small Natrona County Casper bedroom community. The WFC seemed to align with that opposition, showing it thinks so little that its only concept of the energy industry is grounded in fossil fuels.
Democrat Keenan Morgan is also running against Allemand. Morgan and Boyer are from Bar Nunn, Allemand from Midwest. The district covers a large amount of territory but uniquely features three small towns, Midwest, Edgerton and Bar Nunn, with Bar Nunn being by far the largest of the three. House District 58 also includes a sliver of Casper and the large unincorporated area north of Highway 20/26 in Natrona County.
It'll be interesting to see how Allemand, who has a semi uncontrollable temper, reacts Protect Wyoming's advertisement.
May 1, 2026
Maine Gov. Janet Mills dropped out of the race for the Democratic Senate ticket. A popular Governor, she was being upstaged by Graham Platner for the bid to replace 72 year old Susan Collins. Mills is 77 years old, so the race shows the steadfast refusal of Boomers to know when the heck to get out and let the young have a place.
Platner is an oyster farmer and Marine Corps veteran who is a tender 41 years old, an age that would have been regarded as far from young in any era but the current one. As an oyster farmer from Maine this race is showing the interesting rise of some strong agrarian interests on the coasts, with Mary Peltola of Alaska, a Blue Dog Democrat, campaigning on the following:
It's Simple:
The fight for
Fish, Family, Freedom
depends on fixing the rigged system in DC
May 2, 2026
Teacher Brian Costello has announced his bid for House District 37, currently held by Steve Harshman who is running for Superintendent of Public Instruction. Harshman is also a teacher. He will be running against far right wing gadfly Ross Schriftman and Democrat Betsy Erickson.
Schrifman is a Wyoming native.
Conicidentaly Protect Wyoming ran an add on Harshman in today's Tribune:
In House District 57 Luc Colgrove announced a bid for the seat occupied by Julie Jarvis and formerly occupied by Carpetbagger Jeanette Ward, who is trying to get the seat back.
Democrats are not OK with Boomers
Perhaps having learned their lesson with Joe Biden, the party’s voters are starting to reject older, establishment-bound candidates.
May 4, 2026
Democratic candidates announce legislative, county seat bids
All four Democratic state lawmakers will seek reelection. Democrats also have candidates for both commission seats, sheriff, county clerk and more.
Elsewhere I read an interview of Provenza. Like me, she's been in both major parties, and has been an independent.
May 5, 2026
Statewide candidates split on Wyoming GOP’s plans to defy state law and make endorsements
Some agree with the party’s decision and will seek out an endorsement. Others oppose a political party breaking election law.
This stands a pretty good chance of being the political equivalent of pulling the pin on a live grenade and then dropping it in your own foxhole. There's a really good argument there that could lead to the state Supreme Court simply wiping out party dependent primaries under Wyoming's law, and creating a judicially mandated open primary.
Indeed, I hope that happens.
Part of what's amusing here is that Chuck Gray and Reid Rasner, both of whom assert their undying love for Trump whenever possible, are on opposite sides of this issue with Rasner claiming the "establishment" is trying to stop him. Politicians are big on opposing "the establishment". Gray likes the new provisions, Rasner does not, probably because Gray is bargaining on the WFC to endorse him with the Confederate Seal of Approval. Gray was an original WFC Cornfederate, so Rasner is probably correct here that the "establishment" is trying to stop him, if the WFC is the establishment, which of course they'll deny that they are.
Ballow is frank she's opposed. She's been pretty quiet up until recently, but there's a good chance that she will secure the nomination.
May 6, 2026
Trump backed sycophants did well in Indiana where Trump intervened to punish Republicans who didn't vote for redistricting. The result will help march the GOP right off the cliff its headed towards in theall.
This shows the extent to which the GOP is actually dead, replaced by a group of worshippers who follows the words of their leader, rather than reality.
In contrast, Democrats won big in special elections.
And we have this:
Yes, they are. They're frankly really irritating.
May 7, 2026
Elissa Campbell is running for reelection in Wyoming House District 56.
Weston County Commissioners Reject GOP Picks To Replace Hadlock As County Clerk
The current system, it might be noted, required the party of the outgoing clerk to nominate three choices, and if the Commissioners can't pick one, the district court judge does from the outgoing person's party. The GOP's recently fit over complying with state law raises the question of whether this is constitutional. It likely isn't.
May 8, 2026
Oh my.
Rasner is now attacking Gray with a radio ad in which he calls him "China Chuck Gray".
Reid Rasner Launches Attack Ad With Chinese Music, Gong and Ninja 'Hoi!’ Grunts’
I think the best response to that was Legislator Michael Yin's; "“I think Rasner’s campaign is a joke, so I don’t take anything he runs very seriously,”
Yin is right. Rasner is spending money like crazy, but the primary beneficiary of it might be Gray, as the two "I love Trump more than Trump loves Trump" candidates are sucking so much air out of the room that even Steve Megabucks Freiss can hardly get in a word in about how he loves Trump, and Reagan.
Gray, for his part, has referred to Rasner as "Mr. Kronberg-Rasner” which appeared to baffle the Cowboy State Daily but which is pretty clearly a reference to Josh Kronberg-Rasner who must wonder what the heck he did to deserve this. Apparently Gray figures that people will do some independent research on Kronberg and accordingly learn that Reid Rasner and Josh Kronberg were at one time married. If you dig into that, you can learn that, as in this obituary of well known Casper businesman Darrell Decker:
Darrell was preceded in death by his parents and his wife, Billie Jean Decker. He is survived by his two daughters, Darlyn Decker McIntosh and Deborah (Debbie) Ann Decker, both of Casper, WY; four grandchildren Ryan Decker Rasner, Reid Rasner and his husband Josh Kronberg-Rasner, Darbi (Rasner) Westman and her husband Andy, and Zack Gentzlinger; and two great-grand children, Damion and Mason.
The interesting thing about that, of course, is that is Gray's backhanded way of trying to point out that Rasner is a homosexual, hoping that people won't cast votes for his vociferous opponent for that reason.
Of course that brings up the question of why Gray, age 36, is unmarried. I've not seen anything suggesting he's a homosexual (although Rasner admittedly is and there isn't that much public knowledge on it), but it's hard not wonder why the super conservative, family values, party has figures who don't fit that mold. Gray isn't married, Rasner is a homosexual, Hageman has no children of her own. . . *
Well, anyhow. The ad is frankly slimy. Rasner never had any chance in the first place, so violently hurling money in this fashion is really a waste.
Chuck also said the following:
Mr. Kronberg-Rasner sues others for defamation, while he’s the one who is actually lying. Mr. Kronberg-Rasner accuses others of what he’s actually doing, just like leftwing insider politicians like Liz Cheney.
That really didn't make any sense, quite frankly, as Rasner has been suing people for defamation. I guess he's saying that Rasner is defaming him, which is a huge stretch. The irony is that Gray built his entire campaign on the lie of the election being stolen and screams like a weenie every time anyone says anything about him. He did so again here, accusing Liz Cheney, who was clearly a conservative, of being a "leftwing insider". She may have been an insider, but she sure wasn't left wing.
Normally, of course, Chuck is attacking people in the middle. If he ordered lukewarm coffee and the waitress brings hot, she'd get accused of being a left wing radical. This is the first time that he's been attacked from the right and he doesn't really know what to do. It's clear he'd like to come out and say, "yeah . . .well Reid you're a homosexual", but he's clearly afraid to
Ideally, and the ideal really tends not to happen, the Gray/Rasner fight will take them both down and into political oblivion. Their campaigns are self funded for the most part, so the longer this goes on the more of their own cash they're draining. Wyomingites would be well served if they drained all of their reserves, Balow won the race, and Chuck went on to a McDonald's job in Los Angeles and Rasner went back to doing whatever he was doing before.
Footnotes
*Gray accidentally raises an interesting point here. Does supporting homosexual marriage, which I do not, make you liberal by default? It's hard to see how supporting something so fundamentally non traditional would not, in fact, put you in the far left no matter what else you might believe. Of course, maybe Rasner has reformed. People sometimes do.
Politicians with same sex attraction wouldn't normally be expected to reveal it, of course, but some just do. Keeping it closeted while being a right wing Republican, and I'm not accusing anyone of that here, is hypocritical, however.
Of course, the GOP is hypocritical on this in general. In his first successful campaign Trump suggested that same sex marriage would be reversed. It hasn't been, but then right now its stare decisis that its legal. Still, Scott Bessant is an open homosexual in a same sex marriage which, if you really believed what you professed, would raise questions, I guess.
Likewise, flat out avoiding having children isn't very traditional, and from an Apostolic Christian point of view, doing that chemically or artificially is flat out immoral. This is tricker, however, as some people can't have children. Usually you don't know what people's circumstances are, and its impolite to ask, unless their political persona has interjected it.
Finally, all the talk about relationships between men and women and tradition, it's pretty clear that Republicans don't have a problem with Trump having a string of bedmates in prior days. At one time even being divorced was beyond the pale for a Republican President. Now they can have a pre office moral history rivaling that of an alley cat. If the Republicans really meant what they preach (and in fairness, some in the Heritage Society have taken this view), they'd be doing something about no fault divorce.
But then, that'd be contrary to the American Civil Religion, which holds you can pretty much do anything you want in this category, as long as its with the opposite sex.
May 9, 2026
Protect Wyoming ran an ad in today's Trib in favor of Julie Jarvis.
Jarvis captured House District 57 from WFC far right member Jeanette Ward, a carpetbagger from Chicago who had just relocated to Wyoming when she took over the seat that had been occupied by the universally disappointing Chuck Gray. Ward is trying to get the seat back.
Late in the day change for Landon Brown.
Frankly, without a better reason than the one he's given, Brown's action is chicken, as it gives other people who would have run very little time to ponder running.
The Wyoming Freedom Caucus is engaging in complete bullshit here:
Wyoming Freedom Caucus Criticizes Nethercott For Calling For “Lawfare"
I listened to Nethercott on this and she's not calling for lawfare. The WFC is just a bunch of ignorant babies.
Nethercott nearly became the Secretary of State, barely loosing to Lying Chuck Gray. The WFC has never had any love for her in the first place, and basically hates the rule of law.
Related threads:
Pollice Verso. The 2026 Political Negative Endorsement. The Don't Vote For List.
Last edition:

