Friday, June 19, 2026

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 6. The screwworm edition.

Exports of petroleum products and capital goods jumped to record highs reducing the U.S. trade deficit. 

The capital goods item is interesting and I haven't seen it explained. That is a positive trend, if sustainable. The oil exportation one is not as it depletes a diminishing resource at the expense of U.S. consumers. A lot of it seems to be related to AI exports, which isn't necessarily good, aircraft production, and war related purchases.  If all that is correct, it won't be sustainable at the current levels, probably.

Screwworms have reappeared in Texas after a sixty year hiatus.  The Trump administration is blaming the Biden Administration, as that's its default thing to do, but the Trumpistas lifted protections that were in place and allowed importation of Mexican cattle via ports in a probable attempt to lower beef prices. This is likely to have the opposite effect.  It's a more likely cause, although there were concerns about animals moving across the border illegally during the Biden Administration.

Mexico itself was screwworm free as of 1991.  Somehow that got reversed one way or another, and now the problem is back.  Given that, it probably was coming back no matter what.  It is a major crisis.

Nobody has cited the weather, but it is spread by a fly, and that may very well have resulted to the spread of the flies range.

Inflation is up to 4.2%.

cont:

Reporter: Are you concerned, Mr. President, about the latest inflation number which came out this morning?

Trump: No, I love it. I love the inflation.

Johnson is already saying that's not what he meant.

June 14, 2026

Indeed, this would be horrible news:

Wyoming Outfitters, Hunters Say Screwworm Would Be Wildlife Disaster If It Hits State


And Carney continues to press for the new reality of American unreliability.

A global rupture’: Carney calls for Canada-EU unity before G7 summit

Canada’s prime minister has warned that the ‘rules-based’ global order is ‘breaking down’ amid superpower dominance.

June 19, 2026

Those of us in the livestock industry should pray for rain.  We also ought to realize that voting for climate change deniers like Harriet Hageman is basically putting a knife to the through our our children, and then cutting their arteries.

Wyoming Ranchers Pray For Rain As Drought, Demand Push Beef To Record High Prices

Drought?  Get real.  This isn't a normal drought.

Last edition:

Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 4. Economics in the Dementia Ward.

Court Watch Part VII. When the last law was down.

Lawyer, St. Thomas More, who was executed for his adherence to his faith. 

William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!

Robert Bolt, A Man for All Seasons: A Play in Two Acts

The Justice Department is going after James Comey for posting a photo of seashells arranged to spell "8647" on a beach somewhere, asserting it was a death threat on President Trump.  Apparently this is due to the old use of the term "86" to do away with and "47" for Donald Trump's completely illegitimate but widely accepted illegal claim to be President.

It wasn't.

This prosecution will go nowhere whatsoever, but it is more evidence that everyone in the Trump Administration is essentially a fascist with no regard for reality or the rule of law right now.  We are in monumentally dangerous territory.  It's 1534 in the United States with Donald Trump our King Henry VIII.

And the spirt of the age has spread:

What Gray did was flat out illegal.  Gray is relying, in essence, on the advice of the Attorney General and when that's a defense, the attorney client privilege is waived.  The AG's office knows that, but it has to defend the privilege  It's being pretty assertive about it.

Gray needs to suffer the penalty of the law here.

Nobody is more opposed to abortion than I am.  I wouldn't allow for the largely bogus "rape and incest" exceptions that many people will.  But this is really beyond the Pale.  Powell should be ashamed of itself for even appoint this guy to its city council.

Elsewhere, in a nation where we brought a modern justice system, it's still functioning.

South Korean court extends prison sentence for wife of ousted president 

May 5, 2026

Headline in the CST:

Judges reject Trump push to obtain state voter rolls

But of course our Secretary of State, Chuck "If you disagree with me you are a radical communist, fascist, monarchist, podiatrist" Gray just handed Wyoming's over.

May 16, 2026

Smith hasn't been confirmed as US Attorney for Wyoming yet.

May 21, 2026

It appears that Trump's settlement deal in his IRS suit may actually prove to be a bridge too far for Senate Republicans.  

The deal, which frankly is the epitome of corruption, would create a slush fund to pay pardoned January 6 criminals for their inconvenience in being prosecuted as traitors to their country.  That's what they are, and they should not have been pardoned, but Trump sought to go one step beyond that and reward the pack of Horst Wessels.  Frankly, as soon as possible, the pardons should be unrung as illegitimate (Trump isn't a legitimate President and can't pardon anyone).  Anyhow, Republicans are openly balking on the slush fund, amazingly.  It must be really angering constituents, or just too much to stomach.

Indeed, they not only are balking, they sidetracked the ICE funding bill, showing that they're actually willing to do something that is guaranteed to send the Orange Mussolini into a screaming fit, but the fit will pit Trump's ICE demands up against his now open and obvious corruption and the hemorrhaging of the US budget.  It'll be interesting to see where this goes, as once they break with Trump, their relationship with Trump is broken, and if he doesn't come to heel, they can't.

By way of an analogous example, Massie wouldn't come to heel on the Epstein files, but he was one man.  Once it's a pack, it tends to grow.

So, a match is on.

May 29, 2026

A court ruled that Trump's adding his name to the Kennedy Center was illegal and ordered it removed within two weeks.

A different judge enjoined the IRS settlement slush fund from going forward.

June 2, 2026

Trump's insurrectionist slush fund seemed to be getting questioned by the court and now the Attorney General is saying it won't occur.

While Wyoming's Congressional delegation didn't protest it, a lot of Republicans in Congress were finding it to be a bridge too far.

June 3, 2026

Lawyers ask Wyoming Supreme Court to intervene in Gray voter data complaint

June 4, 2026

A Wyoming district court held that the whiney fascist crybabies leading the GOP have to follow state law and seat elected Republican precinct members, something another court did two years ago. The state central committee didn't want to do so as that keeps it from picking fascists.  

It argues that its a private entity and doesn't have to follow state law. . . except of course when it comes to getting preferential places on ballots, having the state run party elections for it, and getting to pick members of certain offices when they become vacant. It's fine with all of that.

Satire aside, this would have been an opportunity for the Court to wipe all of that out, and it should have.

June 5, 2026

Wyoming GOP sues state, challenges constitutionality of ban on pre-primary candidate endorsements

All they really have to do is to quit having state funded primaries.

June 15, 2026

Last Friday retired Judge Campbell struck down a series of provisions regarding abortion.  There was some chance that these would survive challenge, as they did not directly restrict abortion, such as there being a time delay after seeking one, an ultrasound, etc., but he ruled that the Wyoming Supreme Court's earlier decision meant that these were in the nature of health care and could not stand.

I disagree with him on that, but given the absurd Wyoming constitutional provision on health care I've addressed here before, and the S.Ct. decision, it's an understandable result.  It'll go on to be challenged at the Wyoming Supreme Court level, probably.

I keep wondering if anyone has argued the true existential aspect of the questions.  I don't know if that's been done or not.

On the nature of things, one of the local news outlets has had photos of a woman protesting holding a sign that says "Forced Birth = Violence".

Almost all abortions in the US are due to people who just had sex, and then sex resulted in what it results in. That's not forced birth, that's nature.  The common "well what about ten year olds" and the like brings up a case scenario that's exceedingly rare.  The reply to that would be to ask that person if they're opposed to all other abortions, which they are not.

Even at that, however, killing is killing.  It would be just as logical to go out and determine every living American who came about due to rape or tike and shoot them dead now.  Yes, rape and incest are horrible.  Murder is probably the ultimate horrible, however.

Apparently the S.Ct asked, in its opinion, why those challenging abortion in Wyoming don't seek to amend the constitution.  It was a constitutional amendment that got us here, so that makes sense.  So far nobody's lifted a finger to do that.  The likely reason is that they know that amending the provision to allow for making abortions illegal won't pass in the state.  Instead, they feel their odds are better litigating about it, or complaining about it.

On other matters, the case challenging the primary system filed by Skovgaard is a pro se case, as I suspected, meaning it has about zero chance of actually succeeding.

June 18, 2026

Gordon sues Board of Equalization, asks court to enforce property tax cap

The governor filed suit against the 3-member board he appointed after it said it could not certify non-uniform residential property tax assessments.

In other news, some members of the WFC are criticizing Wyoming courts as "activist", an absolutely absurd accusation, for not upholding the most recent abortion laws when the legislature itself is completely responsible for the constitutional amendment that causes those laws to do down in defeat.

The legislature could forward a repeal of that amendment, but it won't, as it's afraid that would go down in defeat.  The whole thing is an example of playing a stupid game and winning a stupid prize.

June 19, 2026

Court sides with challenger to law banning drug users from possessing guns

What could go wrong?

On the topic mentioned above, we'll note that that you heard it here first, but now the drumbeat pointing out the hypocrisy is getting pretty loud:

Tom Lubnau: Sure, Pass Unconstitutional Bills And Blame 'Activist Judges'

Lubnau really throws the gauntlet down, stating:

The fix is simple. Pass a proposed constitutional amendment. I'll draft it for them: Article I, §38 is amended to add subsection (e): Abortion is not healthcare for purposes of this Article. 

Come on Sanchez-Williams.  Come on Bear.  But your legislating where you claimed values are. 

Last edition:

Ballroom Batshit. A demented president goes full bonkers. The 25th Amendment Watch List Fifteenth Edition and Court Watch Part VI.

Thursday, June 18, 2026

King Donald's War, Part 7. The White Flag of Surrender Edition

 

British surrender at Yorktown.  For the nation's 250th Anniversary, King Donald, who stands in polar opposition to what the Founding Fathers stood for, gives us the American defeat in the Persian Gulf.

The regime gets financial relief to reopen Hormuz and hold more nuclear talks.

June 15, 2026

So it seems like a deal has been reached, but it seems that for the most part the war didn't achieve much over what Obama's had, with no illegal war.

More than that, Iran's government is now more hardline than it was before, and they'll be receiving a massive infusion of cash.

June 17, 2026

The Memorandu of Understanding (not treaty) between the illegitimate Trump regime and Iran to end the Trump illegal war, with comments:

1 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States, together with their allies in the current war, declare upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding an immediate and permanent end to the war on all fronts, including Lebanon, and undertake that from now on they will not launch any hostile action against each other, and will refrain from the threat or use of force against each other. The final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article and the remaining Articles.

Interesting that its admitted that its a war, confessing that its launching by the United States is a crime.  Frankly, Trump should be impeached for this.

2 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to respect each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and to refrain from interfering in each other’s internal affairs.

So, not only did we not change the regime, we've agreed not to touch Iran's.

3 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States undertake to negotiate and reach a final agreement within a maximum period of 60 days, extendable by mutual consent.

4 — Immediately upon the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, the United States lift the naval blockade and prevent any interference or obstruction against the Islamic Republic of Iran, and restore traffic within a maximum of 30 days to its full capacity; the traffic of ships shall be proportional to the pre-war volume of traffic on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The United States also undertakes to withdraw its forces from the surrounding areas within 30 days after the final agreement.

So, we're pulling out.

5 — Upon signing this Memorandum of Understanding, the Islamic Republic of Iran will immediately take steps to ensure that the movement of merchant ships from the Persian Gulf to the Sea of Oman and vice versa is resumed within 30 days to the pre-war volume, taking into account the need for the removal of technical obstacles and the neutralization of mines by Iran.

6 — The United States undertakes, together with its regional partners, to create a comprehensive plan agreed upon by both parties for the rehabilitation and economic development of the Islamic Republic of Iran, while ensuring financing of at least $300 billion. The implementation mechanism of this plan, as part of the final agreement, will be formulated within 60 days.

So we're paying for the damage we did during the war.

7 — The United States commits to ending, on a schedule to be agreed upon as part of the final agreement, all types of sanctions currently facing the Islamic Republic of Iran, including resolutions of the United Nations Security Council and the Board of Governors of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and all unilateral U.S. sanctions, both primary and secondary.

And we're lifting the sanctions.

8 — The Islamic Republic of Iran reiterates that it will never produce nuclear weapons. The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States have agreed that the fate of enriched material and the fate of all other mutually agreed nuclear-related issues, including Iran’s nuclear needs, will be adequately addressed in a final agreement; the final agreement will confirm the provisions of this Article.

Iran promises not to build what it had already promised to build, and there's no agreement on nuclear materials.

9 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that, pending a final agreement, they will maintain the status quo: Iran will maintain the status quo on its nuclear program, and the United States will not impose new sanctions on Iran or strengthen its forces in the region.

10 — The United States undertakes that immediately after the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and until the date of the lifting of sanctions, the United States Treasury Department will issue waivers for exports of Iranian crude oil, petrochemical products and their derivatives, and all related services, including banking, insurance, transportation, and the like.

11 — The United States undertakes that, in light of the progress of negotiations towards a final agreement, frozen or restricted funds and assets of the Islamic Republic of Iran will be released and made fully available. These funds, whether held in the master account or transferred, will be used for any final beneficiary payment determined by the Central Bank of the Islamic Republic of Iran and will be fully available for use. The United States undertakes to issue all necessary permits and licenses on this basis.

Some Iranian assets have been frozen for 47 years.

12 — The Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States agree that an implementation mechanism will be established to oversee the successful implementation of and future commitment to the Final Agreement.

13 — Following the signing of this Memorandum of Understanding, and upon receipt of assurances regarding the commencement of implementation of Articles 4, 5, 10, and 11 of this Memorandum of Understanding, and the continued implementation of these steps, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the United States will enter into negotiations for a Final Agreement solely with respect to the remaining Articles.

14 — The final agreement will be approved through a binding resolution of the UN Security Council.

Effectively, the war was about nothing.  We killed people, murdered them really as there was no declared war, didn't change the regime, don't know where the nuclear material really is, didn't actually deplete their missile stockpiles as much as thought, demonstrated to the Chinese that we're much weaker militarily than might have been supposed, encouraged Israel to take advantage of the situation by invading Lebanon, and used up a significant amount of our weapons stockpile.

Incredible.

And so Mad King Donny, MAGA's would be Cyrus the Great, instead turns out to be the architect of American defeat in Afghanistan and Iran.

June 18, 2026

Saying "this was not easy" Trump signed the instrument of impotence yesterday, acknowledging that Iran brought the United States to its knees.

Getting into wars is, in fact, easy.

Winning them much harder.

Winning one that most people didn't want, and which had no clear war aim, harder yet.

Some other views:

The Truth About Trump's Iran Deal

It's a total failure

Peace in our time

Iran peace deal

Calling Out Trump’s Iran Surrender Is Not TDS

The Art of the Deal | Trump's Iran Deal Is Worse Than the One He Tore Up — June 15, 2026

Of course nothing is going to stop the hardcore MAGAs from claiming this is the greatest deal ever.  The IRGC could be marching down Pennsylvania Avenue and they'd still be celebrating Trump's genius.

The entire war was a real example of our Sixth Law of History, "When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over" but now the fifth will visit in spades.  Trump thought the war would be easy, a testament to his intellectual shallowness, but it was hard.  The peace is going to be hard too.  During the war we moved from a super power to a regional power, and we will not regain our former position, ever.  Like many regional powers, we still have global commitments, but now it's evident that we cannot fulfill them.  During the war Trump visited China was was treated like an amusing irrelevancy, as that is what he is to the Chinese.  The war makes a Chinese invasion of Taiwan more likely, and moves up the timetable for that as China knows that the next President, no matter who it is, will not be a demented old fool.  Western Europe is emerging to take much of the place we formerly occupied as well, and we will dance to their tune, which at least is not insane as ours has recently been.

The timing of the end of the war is impossible not to note.  Trump is racing towards death and is desperate for a legacy other than the one he has.  He's not going to achieve it. The war basically ended on his birthday.  His association with war was originally absent:


As President, he thought it would be easy.

Yeoman's Fifth Law of History.  When a war ends is when the defending party decides that it is over.


Desperation, dementia, and hubris, combined with the absolute failure of the American political system.

There remains an opportunity to set some, but not all, of this right.  And that starts with the law.  Trump is increasingly worried that he will be impeached.  He really should be worried. The first act of the new Congress in January, 2027, should be for Articles of Impeachment to be introduced in Congress.  More than that, as war is killing and breaking things, Trump, Hegseth, and the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be charged with murder and tried.

We failed with Nixon, on impeachment, and that gave us Trump.  We don't have much of a chance to get this right.

It should not, however, stop there.  Those GOP sycophants who have some power who have sat around supporting the war in one way or another should likewise bear some repercussion, it at least at the ballot box.

And on that, now that Trump doesn't have to worry about Iran, look for Rubio to try to pivot to invading Cuba.  Marco has only a few months to convert himself from Vyacheslav Molotov into José Martí, and he knows it.  Getting the support of the Cuban American community is his only real chance to obtain the Presidency, which is why he sold his soul to Trump in the first place.  J. C. Vance no longer has any pathway at all, and appears to know it, maybe even be comfortable with it.  He's likely hanging on in hopes that the 25th Amendment removes his obviously demented superior from office, which is his only pathway, or in the anticipation that Trump goes to sleep in a press conference and simply never wakes up, which is becoming an increasingly likely scenario.  

So much so, in fact, that you know everyone standing behind Trump who retains a brain, which not all of them do, have a rush for the treasury plan* in case Trump slumps over and enters the next world.  It'd be mere days before you'd hear the disclaimers of ludicrous and disastrous plans and the political executions would start at the same time.

In the meantime we have a President who is declining mentally and who can see the Reaper standing at the doorway, and by the bedstand, every day.  He doesn't want to be remembered as the friend of a kiddy diddler, or a person who had a vapid irrelevant life.  He wants to be remembered as a hero.  The man who conquered Iran and brought in the "Don Roe Doctrine".  He want to be remembered as the man who cleaned up Washington D.C. and made it a place that Albert Speer would have been proud to work on.

Ballrooms that won't get completed.  A triumphal arch that might get started, but which will be a monument to a looser.  Trump will be the first leader with a arche de l'échec.

And a brilliantly green reflecting pool, clogged with algae.

Absolutely incredible.  

The Great Man Theory of history is, we're told, dead.  Trump's legacy will cause us to question that.  Trump's great, in a negative sense.  He's a remarkable example of what one really bad man can do in a democracy.  Of course, being a democracy, he couldn't have done it without the willing help of about 1/3d of the electorate, the incompetence of the political parties and the moronic two party system, and voters who just stayed home and ate Ding Dongs or whatever.

Don Ho sings "Tiny Bubbles" - Hollywood Palace 1/21/67


To heck with the "Don Roe (row?) Doctrine. . . time for the Do Ho Doctrine.

Footnotes:

* In Medieval England, if a king died suddenly the claimants of the thrown rushed for the treasury to secure it, as that was their best chance of becoming the next king.

Last edition:

King Donald's War, Part 6. The Dunce in Chief and the The Four with Conscience. The Lions Lead by the Yappy Chihuahua Edition.

Roads to the Great War: America's Children at War

Roads to the Great War: America's Children at War: America's schoolchildren served on the home front during World War I. Although American children were geographically removed from the ph...

Friday, June 18, 1926. Egyptian troops at Mecca.

Egyptian soldiers fired into a crowed of Muslims Najadis, killing 25 of them, following a protest that began when the Egyptians were playing music while carrying the Mahmal through the holy city of Mecca during the Hajj pilgrimage, to which the Najadis took offense.

It's often forgotten in the West that Islam is far more internally divided than Christianity, a fact that's aided by the fact that there is no central head of Islam.

The Fédération Internationale de Philatélie was formed for stamp collecting and other branches of philately in at Castagnola in Switzerland.

It's the oldest such organization in the world.

Princess Olga Constantinovna of Russia, 74, former Queen Consort of Greece from 1867 to 1913 as the wife of King Geórgios I, and briefly regent for one month in 1920, died in exile in Rome.

Congress was getting ready to go home.



Congress of that era, and all the way up into at least the 90s, really did work harder than it currently does.  I've heard an interview of a member of Congress who was out of office for a decade or more and who was shocked when he went back about how much real work had decreased.  It's not hard to see that the current Congress is a model of being ineffective.

I wonder, in part, if modern transportation contributes to that.  And the net definitely does.

You could get really fresh butter in Casper.


I knew that you could get locally produced butter in the 20s (and 30s, and 40s, and at least the early 50s), but I didn't really give that all that much thought.

Weirdest coffee ad ever.


And Out Our Way explored a misunderstanding.



Last edition:

Monday, June 14, 1926. The Calles Law.

Sunday, June 18, 1911. Human remains on the USS Maine, Detroit Tigers make comeback.

The Detroit Tigers beat the Chicago White Sox 16 to 15 after coming back from being down 13 to 1 earlier in the game, a feat that has bee duplicated only twice, once in 1925 and once in 2001.

The ongoing efforts to recover the wreckage of the USS Maine resulted in water in the ship being raised lowering to the point where human remains began to be recovered.

Last edition:

Wednesday, June 11, 1911. Not yet stars.

Tuesday, June 18, 1901. Insulting the Chinese, Anastasia born.

The ambassadors to China from the Eight-Nation Alliance voted against allowing Chinese Army soldiers to return to Beijing, a fundamentally insulting vote.

Princess Anastasia was born.

Last edition:

Thursday, June 13, 1901. Murderous logic.Labels: , , , , , , , , ,