The point at which American democracy childishly died by sitting down and pouting on the floor.

U.S. House Democrats, a minority in the House, have decided to sit on the floor until they get their way on voting for several gun control bills that would, if voted upon, fail.

A persons view on this story, admittedly, tends to vary based on their view on the topic of gun control.  Opponents of gun control view this as a silly thing.  Some proponents view it as a heroic one.

Well, I submit, it's childish and disturbing no matter what your view is.

Now, I'll further state that if I ran the House of Representatives I'd let votes proceed.  But then I'd let there be a vote on every bill without them going through committee, and without their being wrapped up in other bills.  There is in fact a legislative body that does basically that, and its the oldest deliberative body in the world, the House of Commons in the English Parliament.  

The Parliament lets every bill be voted on.  Introduce them, and they get voted on. And that's the way it should be.  The U.S. Congress has, instead, developed this Byzantine process where bills have to go through committees, etc., before they can get anywhere.  That's anti-democratic by its very nature, and I'm opposed to it.  But it is the system that's been used in Congress for eons, and the Democrats and the Republicans have used it without complaint for a very long time.

Essentially, therefore, what the minority Democrats are complaining about is that they aren't getting their way.  They're trying to dictate what the majority party does.  That's not the way the system works.  No party out of party can legitimately sit down in protest and implicitly say "the majority won't let the minority have an exception to the rules".  

And they know that.

What they also know and hope is that this makes this issue, which is a popular one in urban areas, but a very unpopular one in rural areas (the Democrats in the House are effectively slitting the throats of the Wyoming Democratic Party which was beginning to show signs of life again), an issue in the fall.  Democrats like to claim that the GOP blocks "common sense gun control" due to  the "gun lobby", which translates as GOP voters not liking gun control and using the NRA to support its view (it'd be interesting to see how Democrats would react to being accused of blocking "common sense protection for the unborn" by serving the "death lobby", probably not well).

And what they also ought to know is that by taking this approach, and tying it to memories of the Civil Rights movement, they're going to see it used again, against them, on things that are legitimately closer in spirit to the Civil Rights movement.  While Pelosi and crew sit there they ought to realize, when they return to power, and sooner or later they will, they're going to hear "Madam Speaker, if you won't bring my bill to the floor to protect the living at all ages, while I'll just sit down right here . . . "

But, whatever a person's view, this symbolizes the ongoing demise of democracy in this country.

Not that it suddenly arrived.  Both parties are to blame and this has been going on ever since the GOP decided to attempt to remove President Clinton for having an affair with an aid. That was reprehensible on his part, but it had nothing to do with legitimate politics and frankly it didn't impact the country in any fashion.   Following that both parties have increasingly criminalized bad economic choices and bad political choices, which is appalling.  This election cycle we're seeing a primary process in which the Democratic Party has put in an entire class of delegates that the party gets to choose in case the people do the wrong thing, and a system which confuses party membership with voting rights has helped nominate a Republican candidate that has very little chance of winning.

Many have speculated this year on whether a third party might have a chance at gaining the presidency this year.  I doubt it, but one certainly has a better chance than in prior years.  Would that one would have a chance getting into Congress on the platform of acting like adults, not penalizing economic and business decisions, and actually performing those acts required of it in the Constitution. 

But that's not going to happen.

The Casper Weekly Press for June 23, 1916

Some of the news of June 23, 1916, is freakishly familiar a century later.

The Big Speech: G. K. Chesterton on the rich, the poor and anarchy.

You've got that eternal idiotic idea that if anarchy came it would come from the poor. Why should it? The poor have been rebels, but they have never been anarchists; they have more interest than anyone else in there being some decent government. The poor man really has a stake in the country. The rich man hasn't; he can go away to New Guinea in a yacht. The poor have sometimes objected to being governed badly; the rich have always objected to being governed at all. Aristocrats were always anarchist.
G.K. Chesterton, The Man Who Was Thursday: A Nightmare

The Punitive Expedition by mid June, 1916. Where are we at in this story?

We started posting regularly about the Punitive Expedition of 1916 with the anniversary of Pancho Villa's raid on Columbus New Mexico, which of course resulted in the expedition being launched.  Indeed we started our coverage of the raid with what amounted to an hour by hour account of the March 9, 1916 attack, and we've tried (but sometimes missed) to cover the event that happened since then, a century ago, in sort of a "real time fashion".  For some of these events, we've included daily newspaper front pages, hoping to present to our readers how this would have appeared to people at home on a daily basis, while still covering the larger events of the expedition, and the day, as well.  Hopefully its been entertaining and instructive. 

 

But we also fear that this daily approach may cause a little bit of a loss of a sense of where, in overall terms of history, things are actually at right now.  After all, we don't live in 1916, so we don't have the sense of daily presence about 1916 that we do, presumably, about our own day and times.  And because events do not appear every day, there's some risk that our story is getting a bit lost.  So where are we in this tale?  Perhaps a recap is in order.

And in presenting that recap, perhaps I should add a little that I omitted, or at least didn't cover in great detail, about the background to the expedition that I didn't before.  Columbus New Mexico is typically treated as a shocking event as Mexican revolutionary forces crossed into the United States and attacked an American town.  What's missed is that this violence started before that, and Columbus wasn't the first raid

The Mexican Revolution that broke out in 1910 had featured an American presence in some fashion since its onset.  Indeed, Madero, in bringing the revolution about, crossed over from the US back into Mexico. So that the US would end up unwilling involved in the Mexican Revolution was inevitable.  Madero actually issued his Plan of San Luis Potosí from San Antonio, Texas, not Mexico, showing the early role the state was to unwillingly play.  That very year, as a result of the revolution in Mexico, the US stationed additional troops along the border to protect American lives and property.

The war first spread across the border June 1911 when Mexican federal forces defeated rebels at Tijuana, which they had earlier captured, and drove them across the border to  San Ysidro, California where they surrendered to the Americans.  The rebels themselves may have had some members who had been living in California, and they were not Madero's men but rather members of a radical left wing anarchist group, showing how diverse the Mexican Revolution was from the very start.

Americans were attacked for the first time that prior April when Maderistas engaged Mexican federal forces at Agua Prieta.  During the engagement the Mexican army crossed the border and attacked American troops in Douglas Arizona, who intervened in the action with the result that Aqua Prieta was left in rebel hands.  That same month, however, American forces in El Paso exchanged fire with rebels under Madero and Villa who were fighting for control of the Mexican city of Juarez.  Madero prevailed in his war with the Mexican government that year and became president, but the violence would not end, as we've already seen.  Madero would seen rebellion from his former allies, and from the former Mexican federal army, by 1912.  Revolution returned to Mexico that year.

1913 would see no attacks across the border by Mexican forces, but it did see Mexican federal troops cross to surrender after they were defeated at Nogales by troops lead by General Obregón.  The following year, 1914, brought US intervention at Vera Cruz, which we've otherwise covered, but which shows the extent to which the relationship between Mexico and the United States had deteriorated.  Indeed, diplomatic relations had been severed.

 

 Tower damaged by Naval gunfire in the Battle of Vera Cruz.

In October of that year Mexican rebels fired into the U.S. Army camp at Naco Arizona while fighting Federal troops in Naco Sonora.  American cavalrymen, however, did not return fire in spite of some being wounded as a result of the rebel fire.

In 1915 relations between the US and Mexico got a little bumpier with the eccentric Plan de San Diego (Texas) was discovered in which some Mexican faction, which is unclear, expressed an intent to recapture land lost to the US during the Mexican War.  The origin of the plan, and who was responsible for it, remains unclear, but it called for an uprising in February 1915 to be followed, should it succeed, by the execution of all non Mexican white males in the newly "liberated" territory. As Quixotic as it was, its followers did engage in some raids in July 1915, several months after they were supposed to have occurred.  The raids, which commenced on July 11, 1915, targeted Mexican Americans, ironically, and went through September of that year until they were addressed.  Property destruction, and at least one assassination, were features of this effort, which was lead by a Mexican American but which depended upon Mexican support for material and about half the men used in the campaign.  About 300 Mexican Americans died in the struggle, some in reprisal raids by white Texans.  The odd small uprising ended when the Wilson administration recognized Carranza who then operated to terminate Mexican support for the campaign, which at least raises some questions.

Unrelated to this, that same year, Villistas engaged US forces in Nogales in a light action that represented a spill over over the siege in Nogales Sonora.  Fighting later that year resulted in the disastrous decision by Wilson to allow transit of Constitutionalist troops by rail over Texas, which we already addressed, and which we believe is directly responsible for the Columbus raid a few months later.

Prior to that, however, in January 1916 Villa drew the horrified attention of Americans when his forces executed eighteen Americans who were removed from a train at Santa Isabel, Chihuahua.  The horrific action was made without any excuse that's rational and naturally defined many people's views of Villa at that time.  The raid on Columbus followed that March, which is where we of course picked up the story. 

 Villa leading his forces prior to his 1915 defeat at Celaya

 

In that story, we've been dealing with the Punitive Expedition itself, but we missed a couple of subsequent raids that occurred in spite of the large force of Americans pursuing Villa in northern Mexico.  But first we'll get to events in the story that actually preceded those. 

 

On April 1  the 10th Cavalry fought The Battle of Agua Caliente.

 Agua Caliente in better times.  The name of the town means "Hot Water".

The 10th Cavalry encountered 150 Villistas under General Beltran at the town of Agua Caliente.  The ensuing battle resulted in a true cavalry charge of Mexican positions.  Mexican forces broke under the charge which resulted in no losses to the Americans.

The unit thereafter pursued retreating Villistas for the next several days. As the unit advanced it ran short of provisions due to being so isolated.  The unit became partially provisioned with the assistance of Constitutionalist officers and through the efforts of their commanding officer, who wrote a personal check to a mining company in exchange for $1,100.00, which was used to purchase provisions.  Amazingly, only one day prior to the battle  The 10th Cavalry become isolated by a blizzard

 

On  April 8 troops under R. L. Howze nearly got into an engagement with Mexican Federal troops.   Two days later, however, they clashed with Villistas, April 10, 1916. near La Joya de Herrera and dispersed them, killing their commander, a Captain Silva.
  
On April 12-13 the U.S. Army found that it was now confronting Constitutionalist forces, i.e. the recognized government of Mexico, in the  The Battle of Parral.  With this, which had been coming on for awhile, the expedition entered a new and very dangerous phase. 

 Corporal Richard Tannous, 13th Cavalry, wounded at Parral.

U.S. cavalry under Major Frank Tompkins, who had been at Columbus the day it was raided and who had first lead U.S. troops across the border, entered Parral and was met with hostility right from the onset.  Warned by an officer of Carranzas that his Constitutionalist troops fire on American forces, Tompkins immediately started to withdraw them  During the withdraw, with hostile Mexican demonstrators jeering the U.S. forces, Mexican troops fired on the American forces and a battle ensued.  While Mexican forces started the battle, it was lopsided with the Mexicans suffering about sixty deaths to an American two.  Tompkins withdrew his troops from the town under fire and sought to take them to Santa Cruz de Villegas, a fortified town better suited for a defense.  There Tompkins sent dispatch riders for reinforcements which soon arrived in the form of more cavalrymen of the all black 10th Cavalry Regiment. 

Tompkins' troops reentered Parral two days later. This marked the high water mark of the Punitive Expedition.  At this point, the Punitive Expedition reached its deepest point in Mexico.  This is both impressive, as it happened so rapidly, and a bit deflating, as after only one month of operations the mission to pursue Villa had effectively been halted and converted into one that was now sort of an indistinct policing occupation, which hoped for more aggressive Constitutionalist policing of the border. 

LoC caption:  "Removing Sgt. Benjamin McGhee of the 13th Cavalry who was badly wounded at Parral, Mexico."

 

On April 30 senior US Army General Hugh Scott and Constitutionalist general Obregon meet in El Paso, Texas to try to work out a framework for what was going on.

 

 Hugh Scott

Gen Hugh Scott, Chief of Staff of the United States Army, and General Alvaro Obregon, Minister of War of the Mexican Government, met in El Paso to discuss problems that had arisen due to the American intervention in Mexico.  The meetings continued to May 2 and resulted in an understanding between the two governments providing that the United States would slowly withdraw from Mexico and the Mexican government would undertake measures to prevent future raids into the United States.  The understanding was then submitted to the governments of the respective parties to see if they would agree to it.  They didn't.

Alvaro Obregon

 

 

On May 5 Villistas crossed the border again, amazingly, this time at Glenn Springs and Boquillas Texas.  A Villista force of over 200 men were held up by a much smaller party of US troops of the 14th Infantry and the raid, which was mostly designed to acquire supplies, turned to property destruction.  The US lost three soldiers and once civilian killed in the raids and captured a Villista officer.  The Villistas, for their part, took with them two civilian captives who were freed several days later after pursuing US cavalry negotiated for their release, and with the release being accomplished when the Villistas simply fled.

 

 

10th Cavalry in Mexico, May 10, 1916.

On May 14 a small engagement took place at San at San Miguelito Ranch, which we've already covered, and which featured an American officer who would go on to fame.

 Cavalryman George S. Patton, in 1918 with a Renault tank, two years following his introduction into armed fame in Mexico.

 

Mexico had its heroes too.  General Obregon, later president of Mexico, with Carranza to his left, receiving a medal in Celaya in connection, in some fashion, with the effort to combat Pancho Villa.

Constitutionalist, i.e., the ruling government, resistance to the American incursion began to significantly stiffen thereafter and the situation became increasingly tense.   This lead, as we recently noted, to the passage of the National Defense Act of 1916.  The act, coming in the context of the crisis with Mexico, laid the groundwork for the expansion of the Armed Forces, call up of the National Guard, and the creation of the Reserve Officers Training Corps.  Part of this reflected the fears of entering the war in Europe, which looked increasingly likely, but much of it also addressed the fear that a war with Mexico might be coming.

 

Preparedness Day Parade, held on Flag Day, June 14, 1916. One day before Mexican rebels would strike across the border again.

 

Chances of that occurring greatly increased on June 15 when the presence of a large American force in Mexico again proved inadequate to stop raids across the American border.  On that day Mexican forces, of some kind, attack San Ygnacio, Texas.  In spite, of perhaps because of, the Punitive Expedition, about 100 men of undetermined Mexican loyalties, perhaps Constitutionalist or perhaps Seditionist, attacked the town which was defended successfully by the 14th Cavalry.  Casualties were generally light on both sides during the battle, although four Americans and six Mexicans were killed.  The raid served to heighten already high tensions and the mobilization of the National Guard, dealt here extensively recently, immediately followed.

 New York National Guardsmen in Texas, 1916.

Mobilized New York National Guardsman.

National Guard Camp, Camp Ordway Virginia, 1916.

But, before the Guard could have any impact on the border, another major, and embarrassing, engagement would happen in Mexico, the Battle of Carrizal. 

 

Following the Battle of Parral, American forces did not advance further into Mexico but scouted out from locations that they were encamped in.  On June 20 the 10th Cavalry went out on such an expedition from Colonia Dublan and received reports of a Mexican Constitutionalist force in the vicinity.  They proceeded to encounter the force at Carrizal. The Mexican forces was deployed to block their further advance to the west and informed the American unit of the same, which in turn informed the Mexican force that it was to proceed through the town.  The Mexican force agreed to let a portion of the American one advance, ultimately, but fired upon it once it entered the town.

A battle ultimately ensued which resulted in the loss of ten enlisted men and two officers.  Unit cohesion was lost in the battle on both sides and the cavalry did not advance past the town. Several enlisted men were taken prisoner by Mexican forces but were repatriated at El Paso Texas ten days later.  Mexican losses were heavier, including the loss of their commanding officer in the unit.  Nonetheless, the battle may be taken as an indicator as to how the US expedition had bogged down into a type of stalemate whose character was changing.

 US troops being repatriated at El Paso.

The engagement was the costliest action that the US engaged in during the Punitive Expedition and it was correctly judged to be a defeat at the time.  The battle came at a point in time in which the US and Mexico were teetering on the brink of war and Pershing was sufficiently angered by it so that he sought permission to advance on Chihuahua City.  President Wilson denied him that permission which likely adverted full scale war breaking out.

The battle proved to be the breaking point for Mexico and the United States, but not in the way that newspapers featured here would have predicted.  With war now clearly looming, both Wilson and Carranza stepped away from it.  By July 5 the forces that were propelling the two nations to war had backed off and the crisis, while still there, was largely passed.   The occupation, for that is what it now was, in turn took on a disturbingly familiar American character.  The mission to capture or kill Villa had failed, although his forces were irreparably damaged and he would in turn fail in his goals.   The civil war in Mexico continued on nonetheless.  The United States had no clear way out of the country it had entered, even though it wished to find one.  The U.S. Army had proven brilliantly effective at moving under adverse conditions but US success didn't mean that US interests still couldn't be touched.

All caught up?

The Douglas Budget for June 22, 1916. Company F Ready for War

And Coal Gassification bites the dust in Carbon County.

A memorial to the men who lost their lives in the Number One Mine at Hanna, Wyoming. The 1903 and 1908 Mine No. 1 explosions claimed 169 and 59 lives respectively, with the majority of the 59 killed in the 1908 disaster being men who were killed in an explosion that occurred after the first 1908 explosion.  The bodies of 201 men from the 1903 and 1908 disaster remain buried in the underground mine.  From earlier coal mining days in Carbon County.

 

Not that this is really news, DKRW's project to build a plant in Carbon County had been in trouble for quite some time.  The economics of it, however, just weren't working out.

That coal can be a starting point for the processing of gasoline, jet fuel and diesel fuel, is hardly news of any kind.  It's been well known for a long time. As is often pointed out in the discussion of this topic, the Germans relied extensively on synthetic, i.e., coal based, fuels during World War Two.  And they aren't the only ones to have relied upon it at one point or another either.  South Africa, in its later embargoed period, and Rhodesia (from South Africa) relied upon synthetic fuel well after the Germans had.  But that should say something about the economics of it.  The Germans relied upon it as they had to.  Outside of Romania and southern Russia, they had no other petroleum fuel sources and couldn't import anything.  Likewise, South Africa and Rhodesia, by the 1970s, were in the same situation.  In other words, economically, converting coal into motor fuel has tended to only make sense if petroleum was basically unavailable.  It has always been cheaper to simply start with petroleum oil, which of course is well on its way to being gasoline, diesel fuel, or jet fuel.  Indeed, in rare instances, such as in Indonesia, some of the stuff is so far advanced towards being fuel oil it doesn't need to be refined at all.

DKRW's problem in Wyoming was that in order for the Carbon County effort to make sense, petroleum had to be sufficiently high, while coal was sufficiently low, that they could undertake the effort and make money at it. Well, coal's pretty cheap, but the price of oil has just been too darned low. So the plans have been shelved.

It should be noted, however, that the coal isn't going anywhere and this might conceivably be the future of coal in the state, at some point.

Mid Week at Work: Jose de Sousa Magano

Caption from Library of Congress:  Jose de Sousa Magano, 35 Aetna St., Fall River, Mass. Born in Fall River, June 2, 1901. Left for the Azores at 8 years of age because family moved back. Cannot read or write in his own language or in English. Never been to school. Returned to Fall River in May 1916. Applied for employment certificate June 17, 1916. Refused on account of not being able to read or write. Will have to attend school until he is 16 years of age. Presented baptism certificate from Santo Christo Church, Fall River, as evidence of his age. Sister had to talk for him. Could not understand or speak English. See 4192. Location: Fall River, Massachusetts / L.W. Hine.

And another one I missed. Passage of the National Defense Act of 1916

And, again, another one I missed, the passage of the National Defense Act of 1916.  The act, coming in the context of the crisis with Mexico, laid the groundwork for the expansion of the Armed Forces, call up of the National Guard, and the creation of the Reserve Officers Training Corps.

Lots of stuff going on in June, 1916.

An event I missed. Mexican forces, of some kind, attack San Ygnacio, Texas on June 15, 1916

I managed to miss this, but this is the even that lead to the National Guard being called up almost immediately thereafter.

In spite, of perhaps because of, the Punitive Expedition, about 100 men of undetermined Mexican loyalties, perhaps Constitutionalist or perhaps Seditionist, attacked the town which was defended successfully by the 14th Cavalry.  Casualties were generally light on both sides during the battle, although four Americans and six Mexicans were killed.

The raid served to heighten already high tensions, which would be further inflamed by the events at Carrizal a few days later.

Cuts in government budgets, Wyoming's economic woes.

Governor Mead today announced that the state will cut its budget by $248,000,000.  The Department of Health's share of that is $90,000,000, which will result in the loss of 677 private sector jobs.  Mead cited the legislator's failure to enact Medicaid expansion as a factor in that loss.  The University of Wyoming will lose $35,000,000 by way of cuts, community colleges $20,000,000 and the Department of Corrections $17,000,000.

I understand the desperate financial situation, but I've noted that I think the cuts in education is ill advised.  Still, this is pretty good evidence of how strained the state's economy is right now.

More evidence, as if any was needed, was provided by the City of Casper the day before, which announced that it was cutting its budget by 37%, which will be accomplished partially by early retirements but which will not feature any layoffs.

The Gathering Storm: The Wyoming Tribune for June 21, 1916

The almost certain war with Mexico loomed large.  Locally, the problem was that the Wyoming National Guard was under strength and couldn't be mobilized until recruiting solved the problem.  Interestingly, this edition reported that the European Allies were seeking to keep a war from breaking out, which certainly would have been in their interest, and that they suspected Germany wanted war to erupt, which was in fact true.

The Judge Mentzer mentioned in this article was either the Cheyenne lawyer or his father who was a National Gaurdsmen and who died of a stroke or severe heart attack some years later during a long ride during a Guard Annual Training.

The Punitive Expedition: The Battle of Carrizal. June 21, 1916

Following the Battle of Parral, American forces did not advance further into Mexico but scouted out from locations that they were encamped in.  On June 20 the 10th Cavalry went out on such an expedition from Colonia Dublan and received reports of a Mexican Constitutionalist force in the vicinity.  They proceeded to encounter the force at Carrizal. The Mexican forces was deployed to block their further advance to the west and informed the American unit of the same, which in turn informed the Mexican force that it was to proceed through the town.  The Mexican force agreed to let a portion of the American one advance, ultimately, but fired upon it once it entered the town.

A battle ultimately ensued which resulted in the loss of ten enlisted men and two officers.  Unit cohesion was lost in the battle on both sides and the cavalry did not advance past the town. Several enlisted men were taken prisoner by Mexican forces but were repatriated at El Paso Texas ten days later.  Mexican losses were heavier, including the loss of their commanding officer in the unit.  Nonetheless, the battle may be taken as an indicator as to how the US expedition had bogged down into a type of stalemate whose character was changing.

 US troops being repatriated at El Paso.

The engagement was the costliest action that the US engaged in during the Punitive Expedition and it was correctly judged to be a defeat at the time.  The battle came at a point in time in which the US and Mexico were teetering on the brink of war and Pershing was sufficiently angered by it so that he sought permission to advance on Chihuahua City.  President Wilson denied him that permission which likely adverted full scale war breaking out.

Blog Mirror: Ramblings of a teacher, Redskins fan, and adoptive mom Orlando…

Ramblings of a teacher, Redskins fan, and adoptive mom

Orlando…

June 18, 2016 | leann28

It has obviously been several days since we heard of the tragedy in Orlando. I don’t even know where to begin with my thoughts about this horrible tragedy. And I don’t want my friends and family to think that my silence for this long means that I have not been thinking about it or that I am not saddened or angry by it. It simply means that I have been thinking about it and trying to figure out exactly what to say or do about it.

The Punitive Expedtion: Mgr. Lavelle Reviewing the 69th, New York, June 21,1916

Monsignor Lavelle reviews the New York National Guard's "Fighting" 69th Infantry Regiment.  The unit, which had Civil War fame, would go on to World War One fame.  It is particularly associated with Irish immigrants and shares Garryowen, the Irish tune, with the U.S. 7th Cavalry Regiment.

Blog Mirror: Painted Bricks: The Clyfford Still Museum, Denver Colorado

Painted Bricks: The Clyfford Still Museum, Denver Colorado:

Most of the signs up here are of older painted brick signs, of course. There are exceptions, and this is one, but this is particularly an exception as I'm going to comment.

Commentary from me isn't unusual, but usually it's on our Lex Anteinternet blog and not here.  But I cannot resist.

This is a very large sign skillfully rendering a photo of Clyfford Still into a sign. The big streaks on the end of the sign is a late example of Still's allegedly artistic work, better regarded as junk.

Still was a 20th Century artist who, starting off in the 1920s, had a public art career. Early on he actually painted figures but, starting in the 1930s, his work began to somewhat resemble that of other period modern artists and following that it was reduced to colored blotches such as we see Still, smoking a cigarette, contemplating here.  It's ironic that, in order to represent Still to the public, the museum hasto use a photograph, rather than one of his crappy pointless blotched up canvasses.

On the side of the photo the following is set out:

The canvas was his ally.
The paint and trowel were
his weapons. And the
art world was his enemy.

Apparently art itself, at least in an intelligible fashion capable of conveying some meaning to 99.9999% of humanity, was also his enemy as the result of the use of his weapons was the slaying of intelligibility.  It's complete junk.

But then, a lot of "modern" art is.

Well, in that war the guerilla of public indifference is probably the victor, as the big result of stuff like this is the separation of humanity from its artists.  So, if any meaning was intended to be conveyed, it's conveyed to a pretty self contained little crowd.

The Casper Record for June 20, 1916. War with Mexico inevitable

Compared to many other newspapers, the Casper Record always had a calm appearance. Nonetheless, on this day, Casper Record readers learned that we were almost certainly on the brink of war with Mexico.

More Monday At The Bar. U.S. Supreme Court: The Bill of Rights still doesn't apply to Indians on the Reservation.

One of the most shocking features of US Constitutional law is that the Bill of Rights doesn't apply, at all, to Indians on the Reservation.  It fully applies off the reservation, but not on.

This is so shocking that people will often refuse to believe it.  Even skilled legal practitioners will scoff at the thought.

Well, this past week the United States Supreme Court, in an opinion with no dissents, confirmed that this remains the law, overturning the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in United States v. Bryant.

I understand the basis of this line of legal thought, but frankly, I think it's appalling and that this old doctrine is long obsolete.  I can think of solid legal arguments for changing it that do not do violence to the Constitution, and which would certainly be less novel than Obergefell.

So, in the name of protecting tribal sovereignty, a laudable goal, the population that's been within the geography of the nation the longest, remains the one with the fewest rights, on the land where they are sovereign.  That's just wrong.  I realize that the Indian Commerce Clause of the U.S. Constitution gives Congress the ability to do what they will with the sovereign entities of the Tribes, and I realize that a less than stout Indian Bill of Rights is supposed to do something for Indians on their own lands, but in 2016, depriving Indians of their full rights on tribal lands is wrong, even if that means somewhat diminishing the sweeping authority that the tribes themselves have, as sovereign entities, within the reservations.

Additional Monday at the Bar. Lex Anteinternet: The ghost of the Crow Treaty of 1868 appears in a Wyoming Court (and soon in the Wyoming Supreme Court)

As we earlier reported on this item:

Lex Anteinternet: The ghost of the Crow Treaty of 1868 appears in a ...:    Crow Indians, 1908. These men may have been living at the time the Ft. Laramie Treaty came into being. The Casper Star Tribune rep...

the Crow game warden convicted in a Wyoming court of poaching just over the Wyoming border was, as noted, convicted.  Based on the reporting of the trial, the 1868 treaty wasn't asserted much, rather mistake of geography seems to have been. However, we need to keep in mind that reporting on legal matters is usually not completely accurate.

Suggesting that it was not, in fact, fully accurate we learn today in the Casper Start Tribune that the warden is appealing his conviction and asserting his rights under the 1868 Treaty as a basis for it. The article is somewhat confusing, however, in that it states he's appealing it to Wyoming's 4th Judicial District, which can't be accurate as that's the trial level court.  He'd have to appeal it to the Wyoming Supreme Court.  His lawyer indicates that they'll take it all the way up to the United States Supreme Court if they can and must, although getting a case up there isn't easy as it isn't by right.  Additionally, based upon last week's U.S. Supreme Court decision in United States v. Bryant I wouldn't be terribly optimistic about that  effort as the U.S. Supreme Court is pretty clearly telegraphing that while it may have abandoned the traditional reading of the law in various things, in this area, Indian law, it apparently has not.

 

The courthouse for Wyoming's 4th Judicial District in Sheridan Wyoming.

The Big Picture: Holscher's Hub: New York Yankees v. Colorado Rockies, Coors Field....

Holscher's Hub: New York Yankees v. Colorado Rockies, Coors Field....

Cuts in higher education? Is this a good time? And a comment on UW football

 

 S.H. Knight Geology Building, 1986

Earlier this week Wyomingites were reading about new UW President Laurie Nichols declaring a "financial crisis" in existence that will allow her to act with greater freedmon in making the $41,000,000 in cuts that she has to make due to budget shortfalls, brougth about by the decline in energy revenues.  This followed the University of Wyoming Board of Trustees declaring an emergency to be in existence.

And an emergency it surely is.

And its an emergency for the University of Wyoming because the funding isn't there, but that  is, in part, a man made emergency.

It makes me sound  like a follower of John Maynard Keynes, which I am not, but this is a very poor time for the state to be cutting our colleges and university in terms of funding. The worst possible time, in fact.  Young men and women who were working in the energy sector will not be enrolling in college and university in droves, hoping that education will give them a second chance.  And for many of them it will.  Law school gave me a second chance when the energy industry collapsed in the early 1980s.  And I'm not the only one who was in that situation, and law wasn't the only route taken.  But the educational opportunities were there.

Class room in the S. H. Knight Building, 1986. 

This state makes a lot of noise about "learning" from our past mistakes. But we don't.  We don't diversify our economy. We don't seem to learn that limiting education means exporting our young population.  And we don't grasp that trying to grab the Federal domain, which we attempted in an earlier Sagebrush Rebellion that we're trying again, comes back to haunt us.  

Cutting education now is a terrible idea.  If we are really going to diversify our local economy, the generation entering college now is the generation that's going to do it.  This guts their chances, and ours by extension.

Before I leave U.W., I'll additionally comment, although I probably shouldn't, on the pablum in today's paper about UW football.

There's a column in the paper today just gushing about how "we" all love "our" football team.  It's just flowing with gushing admiration and praise about how this institution pulls the state together.

Well, bull.

I've lived in Wyoming my entire life and I haven't ever seen a UW football game.  Never.  I attended UW twice, starting off in 1983 and finishing up in 1990, and not once did I go to a game while I lived there.  When I lived there I mostly noted the home games by the influx of alumni and football attendees flooding Laramie, which after all isn't that big.

And I'm not a lone in that.  Yes, while I attended UW students went to the games, but I don't recall there being a fanatic devotion to the team while I was there.  Indeed, the basketball team seemed to have a bigger following, perhaps because it was really good in that time period.

Now, I'm fine with people having a fanatic level of devotion to UW football, but how is it that that the same week I'm reading about education, which is the real, and only, purpose of a university, being cut, while still reading about a program, football, that's entirely surplus to that purpose?  Something is amiss in that.

 

UW women's rugby. . . there are other sports other than football at UW.