Court Watch Part VIII. The only restraint edition.

Jefferson County Courthouse, Port Arthur, Texas.

July 14, 2026

In a blistering opinion, a Federal Court judge ruled that President Donald Trump improperly used a $10 billion lawsuit he filed against the IRS to extract personal benefits from the government and prevented the terms of a settlement agreement from taking legal effect.

And more locally:

Laramie County sheriff ordered to appear in court, explain why law firm can’t inspect records

July 23, 2026

Headline in the CST:

Wyoming attorneys oppose Trump’s AG pick

71 Wyoming attorneys signed onto the letter.  Lummis and Barrasso will ignore it.

August 1, 2026

Charges against an Olympic kayaker for vandalizing the reflecting pool have been dropped. 

That was predictable, but what the Justice Department admitted was not.  It admitted the damage was the result of "flawed installation by the contractor" as well as "the rush to complete the project prior to events associated with the America 250 celebration in the weeks surrounding Independence Day 2026."

Every lawyer associated with this should be dismissed and disbarred.  Trump should be impeached.  The victim of these false charges should sue for malicious prosecution.

Closer to home:

Wyoming archaeologists take BLM to court over Native sites, human remains

August 5, 2026

The U.S. Attorney’s Office dismissed all charges against David Hearn, Justin Carreno, Sophie Dennison-Gibby and Cameron Thiers for the pool vandalization that never occured.  Donald Trump had previously described these people as “SICK, DERANGED PEOPLE".  He's the sick deranged people, but people who aren't victims of Trump Derangement Syndrome and think he's something other than a rampaging deranged narcissist know that. 

Now, even after the Toddler's tantrums, no charges are pending at all. They never should be.

Lawsuits should, and I predict will, be filed against the government over this.

August 8, 2026

The DC Circuit ordered Trump to halt his illegal ballroom construction but, in a wussy move, stayed its decision for fourteen days in order to allow Trump to appeal, which he, or rather his administration, will.

The Court, in its decision, noted:

Whether or not a massive ballroom should be constructed is for Congress to decide and is not a matter for Executive self-help.

August 11, 2026

It's not that there aren't some really issues here.

Judge dismisses closed primary lawsuit for the second time

But it does provide a good example of why it hurts things for everyone when a gadfly like Skovgaard decides to play lawyer.

August 12, 2026

Court steps in to counter coup attempt.

August 18, 2026

Good news:

Retired Cheyenne attorney renews legal challenge to Secretary Gray’s handoff of voter data feds

Gray violated the law on this and needs to be held fully accountable. Courts looking at this issue have uniformly supported the states that refused to provide the information.

Gray should be made to recover the information he supplied.  This was illegal.  

August 25, 2026

This doesn't decide the ultimate issue:

Supreme Court allows Trump administration to move forward with order imposing restrictions on mail-in voting

But coming when it does, it may very well be the law in a practical sense this election cycle, and impact the election.  It's specifically designed to frustrate Democratic voting.  However, as Amy Howe reports:

A separate ruling by the same judge, in a case filed by a different set of plaintiffs, temporarily prohibits the U.S. Postal Service from implementing one provision of the executive order anywhere in the United States. That ruling remains in effect, at least for now.

The decision is flat out wrong and the Supreme Court will regret it.  The Democrats are increasingly like to win both houses of Congress this Fall and they will begin to work on major Supreme Court reform. Trump can prevent that while he's in office, but he's becoming the political kiss of death for GOP candidates and when a new Democratic President comes in, this order will come off and the Supreme Court will be radically reformed.  Perhaps first up will be age limitations, likely 70 years of old, which will wipe out the conservative majority on the court.

A decision like this one will help bring about that downfall.  So does stuff like this:

Supreme Court allows White House ballroom construction to continue for now

The mail in voting one at least has some think judicial reasoning Staying ballroom construction was the obvious choice here and the Court didn't do it. That probably signals that they'll let this insane project go forward.

August 27, 2026

After Election Loss, Reid Rasner Sues A Sixth Person For Defamation

One of Rasner's previous suits is in the CST today on the pending summary judgment motion.

August 31, 2026

The Supreme Court sealed its fate today in holding that the Plaintiffs in a case challenging the legality of Trump's illegal construction of a giant garden shed on White House Grounds lacked standing.

Bullshit.

Justice Roberts, who dissented in the 5 to 4 decision, noted that the construction was likely illegal.  It is. This was a standing decision.

So construction will commence and may well get completed. The legality will be ruled upon in the future, and then the heaping pile of shit hopefully blown to the ground by a future administration that will rely on this decision. The Supreme Court will go to 13 members, and an age limitation will be put on the justices guaranteeing a liberal majority on the court for a century.

September 10. 2026

Twenty states filed two separate lawsuits against the government alleging the Trump administration illegally weakened the Endangered Species Act.

September 11, 2026

The 1st Circuit Court of Appeals refused to lift an injunction on the USPS prohibiting the implementation of crybaby's attempt for a fall coup by banning mail in voting.

September 15, 2026

The US Supreme Court decided in a 7 to 2 vote to block the Trump USPS rule prohibiting mail in voting.  Alito and Thomas were the two dissenting votes.

October 14, 2026

That this is even a topic shows how absurd our times are.

Wyoming Supreme Court Hears Trans People's Argument To Change Sex On Birth Certificates

Your sex at birth, is your sex.  Nothing can or should change that.

October 15, 2026

Judge halts sweeping plan to move Forest Service headquarters west, including state office in Cheyenne

 

Judge halts sweeping plan to move Forest Service headquarters west, including state office in Cheyenne

October 17, 2026

Judge Deciding Whether To Hold Sheriff Kozak In Contempt Over Immigration Records

Last edition:

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

Labels: 2020s, 2026, Abortion, Chuck Gray, Court Watch, law, Politics, South Korea, St. Sir Thomas More, The 2021 Insurrection, The Second Trump Administration, Wyoming, Wyoming (Powell), You heard it here first

Going Feral: Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 15, 1946. The Golden Age of War Surplus

Going Feral: Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 15, 1946. The G...: Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 15, 1946. Death of Hermann Göring : On the day of his scheduled execution, Hermann Göring committed suici...

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 15, 1946. The Golden Age of War Surplus

Lex Anteinternet: Tuesday, October 15, 1946. Death of Hermann Göring: On the day of his scheduled execution, Hermann Göring committed suicide with a poison capsule.  He asked for Lutheran last rights beforehand...

Of course, a huge war had just been fought.

Surplus was available at Cooks.

War surplus is a fond memory of my childhood.  I'm sure I've noted that before.  Some World War Two surplus was still around a good twenty years and more after the war, mixed in with later surplus, all of which could be found at the War Surplus store in the Sandbar district of Casper.  Some of it really useful stuff too, like the stuff in the Max Cook's ad. Some, however, like helmets and leggings, not so much.

I cross posted this item over to a Reddit sub, where somebody made this interesting observation:

This makes modern surplus prices seem reasonable (except maybe the wool socks... I love me some wool socks)... left column is 1946 price, right column is 2026 equivalent.

Bausch & Lomb 9x30 binoculars (plus federal tax)	$42.50	$682
U.S. Navy Arctic-style jacket	$10.95	$176
2-in-1 Army sleeping bag	$39.50	$634
Single sleeping bag	$22.50*	$361
Army hunting knife	$3.95	$63
Army surplus hunting boots	$9.45	$152
Pendleton wool shirts	$7.50–$9.25	$120–$149
Wool hunting socks, per pair	$0.70	$11
Pendleton wool blanket	$9.95	$160
Waterproof hunting coat	$11.95	$192
Hunting pants, from	$4.25	$68
Fleece-lined sweat shirt	$1.45	$23
Reversible hunting cap	$1.45	$23
New Army compass	$2.88	$46
Air mattress, 31x72	$20.60	$331

Those prices are really hard to figure.

I still favor, I'd note, a lot of military gear.  I do in part because I'm cheap, and in part, because it's durable.

Saturday, October 16, 1976. Disco Duck.

Organized crowd demonstrated against Jiang Qing, the widow of Mao Zedong, and one of the Gang of Four, signalling that the gant was about to be turn upon by Chinese authorities.

A Saudi Arabian brokered ceasefire went into effect in Lebanon.

The Cincinnati Reds beat the New York Yankees in the opener of the 1976 World Series.

Disco Duck hit the number 1 position on the musical charts.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 14, 1976. Blog Mirror: October 14, 1976: The Chris Chambliss Game

Labels: 1970s, 1976, 1976 World Series, baseball, Blog Mirror, Uncle Mike

Wednesday, October 16, 1946. Nuremberg sentences carried out.

Joachim von Ribbentrop (Minister of Foreign Affairs), Wilhelm Keitel (Head of the German High Command), Ernst Kaltenbrunner (Head of the Reich Main Security Office), Alfred Rosenberg (Primary Nazi ideologist and racial theorist), Hans Frank (Governor-General of occupied Poland), Wilhelm Frick (Minister of the Interior),  Julius Streicher (Publisher of Der Stürmer), Fritz Sauckel (Plenipotentiary for Labor Deployment), Alfred Jodl (Chief of the Operations Staff of the Armed Forces High Command) and Arthur Seyss-Inquart (Reich Commissioner for the Netherlands) were executed.

Their last meal consisted of sausage and cold cuts, along with potato salad, black bread, and tea.

Sgt. John Woods was the executioner.

Executions started at 1:30 a.m.

Von Ribbentrop was executed first.  His final words were:

God protect Germany. God have mercy on my soul. My final wish is that Germany should recover her unity and that, for the sake of peace, there should be an understanding between East and West. I wish peace to the world.

Von Ribbentrop apparently told the Lutheran pastor who was present that he would see him again. The execution was not done well and it took fourteen minutes for him to die.

Wilhelm Keitel.

I call on God Almighty to have mercy on the German people. More than two million German soldiers went to their death for the fatherland before me. I follow now my sons—all for Germany.

Keitel was a cousin once-removed of Katherine "Kitty" Oppenheimer.

Ernst Kaltenbrunner "

I have loved my German people and my fatherland with a warm heart. I have done my duty by the laws of my people and I am sorry my people were led this time by men who were not soldiers and that crimes were committed of which I had no knowledge. Germany, good luck.

Alfred Rosenberg, nothing.

Hans Frank

I am thankful for the kind treatment during my captivity and I ask God to accept me with mercy.

Wilhelm Frick

Long live eternal Germany.

Julius Streicher

Adele, my dear wife.

Fritz Sauckel

I am dying innocent. The sentence is wrong. God protect Germany and make Germany great again. Long live Germany! God protect my family.

Alfred Jodl

My greetings to you, my Germany.

Arthur Seyss-Inquart

I hope that this execution marks the final act of the tragedy of the Second World War and that the lesson learned from this war will be that peace and understanding should exist between peoples. I believe in Germany.

The News reported that some women were studying engineering in Colorado.

It was also speculating on the political fortunes of Wyoming's Governor, Lester Hunt.

Hunting season was the subject of a cartoon.

The RMS Queen Elizabeth returned to commercial use.

Gordie Howe made his NHL debut.

Actress Suzanne Somers was born.

Last edition:

Tuesday, October 15, 1946. Death of Hermann Göring

Labels: 1940s, 1946, 1946 World Series, baseball, Cartoons, Daily Living, Food, German Luftwaffe, Harry S. Truman, Hermann Göring, J.R. Williams, Nazi Germany, Nuremberg Trials, Truman Administration, Uncle Mike, War Crimes, World War Two

Friday, October 16, 1936. Siege of Oviedo broken.

The Siege of Oviedo, which had started on July 19 with a Republican investiture, ended in a Nationalist victory.

Col. Antonio Aranda Mata, the commander of the besieged Nationalist at Oviedo.  He'd be sacked by Franco in the 1940s for being part of a secret monarchist movement, but was restored to rank and promoted by King Juan Carlos.  He died at age 90 in 1979.

Newspaper owner Lord Beaverbrook called on King Edward VIII and informed him that he would help enforce a voluntary media blackout on the king's relationship with Wallace Simpson.

Paris conducted a nocturnal practice air raid.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 15, 1936. Battle of Sigüenza ends.

Labels: 1930s, 1936, Battle of Sigüenza, British Empire, Edward VIII, Equine Transportation, Great Depression, Kentucky, Nazi Germany, Spain, Spanish Civil War, The Holocaust, The Press, The written word, United Kingdom

Saturday, October 16, 1926. Fighting in Eastern China.

Xia Chao, Governor of Zhejiang province, declared it's independence in rebellion against warlord Sun Chuanfang.  He allied himself with the Kuomintang.

Sun Chuanfang

The Chinese troopship Kuang, which was carrying troops commanded by Sun Chuanfang, exploded with a large loss of life.

The era of robbing mail trains had begun.

Prices at the Piggly Wiggly:

The same location, and building, today:

"U Bett It Hurts" Tattoo parlor, formerly Casper's Piggly Wiggly.

 

This building appears to be empty, and it also appears to have been divided into sections.  The portion to the left of the photo was clearly once part of the overall business front.

That business was Casper's Piggly Wiggly.  It appears to have been stores second location, an earlier one was downtown on 2nd Street.

At some point it became a tattoo parlor.  I can recall it being that, but I can't recall when.  The art advertising the tattoo parlor is horrible, so I doubt it attracted many customers in and of itself.

Last edition:

Thursday, October 14, 1926. Winnie-the-Pooh.

Labels: 1920s, 1926, 1926 Colored World Series, baseball, The written word

Monday, October 16, 1911. Plot against Taft and Progressive Party meets for the first time.

A railroad detective discovered a plot well in progress to detonate a rail line that President Taft was to travel over later that day.

The National Urban League was created.

The first meeting of the Progressive Republican Party occured.  It endorsed Senator Robert La Follette for President, but that would not stick.

It's odd to think that in 1911 the Republican Party was a center right party that was been threatened by Republicans to its left.  The Progressive Party was an outright liberal party.

Today, of course, there's an attempt to threaten the Republican Party in Wyoming with a challenge from the very hard right.

Philadelphia took game two of the 1911 World Series.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 15, 1911. Battle at Tepoztlán.

Labels: 1910s, 1911, 1911 World Series, 1922, baseball, Ejército Libertador del Sur, Emiliano Zapata, Mexican Revolution, Mexico, Philippines, Women, Zapatistas

Wednesday, October 16, 1901 Booker T. Washington dines at the White House with Theodore Roosevelt.

Booker T. Washington dined at the White House, an event which sparked controversy and massive discontent in some quarters.

Nearly a quarter of Company E, U.S. 9th Infantry, were killed in an ambush on Samar.  Six were wounded. It was still a better result than occured at Balangiga on September 28.

Jean-Luc Krieger drove 191 miles in France in an electric car without recharging.

Last edition:

Saturday, October 12, 1901. The White House.

Labels: 1900s, 1901, 2025 White House Vandalization, Boer War, Cartoons, Horatio Herbert Kitchener, Qing Dynasty, Theodore Roosevelt

Monday, October 16, 1876. The Conhoy Riot.

A Republican, and therefore heavily African American, political meeting was scheduled for the Brick House at Conhoy, South Carolina. Given recent racist violence against them, hundreds of black militiamen were present.  Democratic clubs from Charleston County showed up and demanded equal time to speak, a fight broke out, and shots were fired.  Six whites and one black in attendance were killed.

Gen. Terry once again left Ft. Abraham Lincoln, this time with the 17th U.S. Infantry, bound for the Northern Plains.

The last shots in the Spring Creek battle were fired.

Last edition:

Sunday, October 15, 1876. More action at Spring Creek.

Labels: 1870s, 1876, Army, Great Sioux War, Indian Wars, Montana, Native Americans, Sioux, Sitting Bull (Tȟatȟáŋka Íyotake), Spring Creek Raid

Tuesday, October 15, 1946. Death of Hermann Göring

On the day of his scheduled execution, Hermann Göring committed suicide with a poison capsule.  He asked for Lutheran last rights beforehand and was refused.  Guards noticed his convulsions and summoned medical help., but he died too quickly.

Göring had asked to be shot, rather than hung, as he thought that more honorable.  That request was refused.  How he obtained the poison has been debated.  A suicide note he left claimed that he had kept it concealed the entire time.  Former U.S. Army guard Herbert Lee Stivers claimed in 2005 that he had brought the pill to him at the request of a woman named Mona, and that he did not know that it was poison.  The suicide lead to suspicion regarding several people, including an Army officer who died eight years following this event, so that his name was never cleared.

A major figure in Nazi Germany, the World War One aviator was responsible for at least two major German defeats, one being the failure to be able to destroy the trapped British Army at Dunkirk, a failure that Hitler sharead as he had halted the German advance.  The second defeat was his promise to be able to defeat the British by airpower which lead to the Battle of Britain. While the popular myth has the British on their back feet the entire time, in reality the Royal Air Force was more than capable of defeating the Luftwaffe over Britain.  Here too, while it was a real defeat, the Germans were in fact completely incapable of invading Britain.  

The Luftwaffe would, of course, prove to be incapable of defending German airspace as well.

Göring's suicide postponed the other executions planned for this day.

The May company was selling a brand of kids jeans I've never heard of.

Surplus was available at Cooks.

The Out Our Way cartoon featured something that must have been familiar to the readers, but I've never heard of, renting a garage.

The St. Louis Cardinals took the World Series.

October 15, 1946: Enos Slaughter's Mad Dash

Last edition:

Monday, October 14, 1946. Price controls on meat removed.

Labels: 1940s, 1946, Dutch East Indies, Food, Harry S. Truman, Indonesia, Indonesian National Revolution, inflation, Netherlands

Thursday, October 15, 1936. Battle of Sigüenza ends.

Sigüenza fell to the Nationalist after a battle that had commenced on August 7.

Jewish teachers were banned from public schools in Germany.

The news of Wallace Simpson's divorce was not reported in the United Kingdom and the the British Empire, as well as in Germany, Italy, Russia and Greece, in an example of press self censorship.

“Booneville, Owsley County, Kentucky. Pack Horse Librarian returning of the mountain side for a new supply of books to be distributed to rural and isolated sections of the county.“  October 15, 1936.

Last edition:

Wednesday, October 14, 1936. Shifting alliances.

Labels: 1930s, 1936, Belgium, Edward VIII, France, Franklin Roosevelt, Illinois, Missouri, Missouri (St. Louis), Monarchy, Rhineland, the spoken word, United Kingdom