Wednesday, October 14, 2026

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hunting Camp

Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Hunting Camp: October in Wyoming is hunting season. Not that I get out as much as other guys do, but I'm no stranger to beating the brush for big game...
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Tuesday, October 13, 2026

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 25th Edition. The casting the vote edition

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 25th Edition. The casting the v...:  I have now voted. October 13, 2026. I went down to the old county courthouse and caste my votes.  I've now weighed in for 2026. In some...

The 2026 Election, 25th Edition. The casting the vote edition.

 I have now voted.


October 13, 2026.

I went down to the old county courthouse and caste my votes.  I've now weighed in for 2026.

In some ways, it wasn't easy for me.  I knew who I wanted to vote for, but I was a bit tortured between not voting for Chuck Gray and Harriet Hageman and leaving my ballot blank, or for casting a vote for one of their opponents.

I did the latter.

The situation facing the country is just too dire.  We are, effectively, in the 1932 German election where the choices are boiling down to a desperate few.  Or, perhaps, we're in the June and November 1946 French election where the Catholic Christian Democrats were in a coalition with the Communists, which shows how dire the situation was in the Fourth Republic.  The choice now is to vote against a rising force of bloody fascism and acknowledge that the opponents retain some real taints, or to allow the country to do down the Via dei Fori Imperiali.

It's that dire.

The last few days made up my mind for me.  A government that makes an open spectacle of execution and then sides with Vladimir Putin.

I'm not going there, and I cannot tolerate going there.

Nien, Non, No.

In two years I'll reassess.  Chances are that at least one of the candidates I voted for I won't vote for again.

So, how did I vote?

Let's look at the state elections, that was easy.

Governor:1

Eric Barlow.  He's the only real choice, and he's a good one.  Rebecca Bextel thinks she's a conservative, but she's a Dixiecrat through and through. She needs to go home to Sweet Home Alabama, where she is literally from.  Kenneth Casner is an overdone, baked in the sun, left out to dry, joke of a candidate.  He symbolizes the pathetic state the Wyoming Democratic Party is in.  The Democrats used to have some fine candidates, and it wasn't all that long ago that they were in the Governor's chair.  Casner? Give me a break.

Barlow's election will be the death of the Wyoming Freedom Caucus, whose Bittereinders are already retreating to the Constitution Party Redoubt.

Good riddance to them.

So, here, I voted for a straight Republican ticket.

The other state races.

Other than Governor, we had a host of uncontested or barely contested races in which incumbents sought reelection. Fortunately for all of us, they are all really good candidates.

The one contested one is Superintendent of Public Instruction.  In that race Ana Cordova, a Democrat, contests with Steve Harshman, a Republican.

There's' no doubt that Harshman, an local educator of long and respected standing, is an excellent choice. Still, I thought about voting for Cordova, a young educator with an impressive background.  Harshman is 62 or 63, Cordova much younger.  I suspect that Harshman might look at running for Governor, but he'll be 72 years old at least before he can, given that Barlow will win two terms.

Again, here, on state races, I voted a straight Republican ticket.

The property tax initiatives

There is a Freedom Caucus ballot initiative to cut residential property taxes in half, which benefits the carpetbagger class.  It would but local governments like a fish, but hey, hey, the carpetbaggers have already educated their children and live behind walls, so they'll be okay.

I actually had a county commissioner explain this one to me in detail.  Rank and file property owners voting for it, given the other deductions a property owner is eligible for, are screwing themselves.

I voted against it.

Frankly, I'd impose a tax, if I could, on the property of the carpetbaggers, which drives up property values for anyone else. Raise your kids in California? Well, you weren't here while we were enduring the ups and downs of the Wyoming economy and now you can pay for it. Stay in California if you don't like it. Even if you do, stay in CAlifornia.

Anyway you look at it, I'm not for giving the Bextels and Biens an advantage in taxes at our expense.

Representation in Washington D.C.

It was this set of choices that were difficult for me.

There was never any question that I would never vote for Chuck Gray.  I never have, and I never will. Chuck needs to go back to Los Angeles and work for a good twenty years at a convenience store in Watts so he knows who real people are.  Likewise, there was never any question I'd vote for my law school near contemporary Harriet Hageman, whose evolution from farm girl, polo shirt wearing, cute student to dressed in black lawyer for the rich and powerful is a disappointing memory of a very long career.

She didn't have to turn out like this.  If she'd gone to work for one of the real civil firms in the state, she would not have.

No, the question was whether I'd vote for Kinney, Johnson, or Byrd or nobody at all.

In the end, given the dire situation, I voted for the Democratic candidates.

Now, I'll note that I think Byrd is an excellent candidate. Better than Hageman in every way, save perhaps for two ways.  

Gray symbolizes everything wrong with the GOP in Wyoming except that instead of being a carpetbagger from the Confederacy, he's a carpetbagger from Los Angeles, and a pathetic one. California conservatism was real conservatism.  Gray's father was an admirer of Reagan, not Strom Thurmond.  Gray is an example of how Sun Yat-Sen tragically gave us Mao Tse-Tung.  A movement gone preversely wrong, although Reagan's embrace of the fowl Dixiecrats made that predictable.  And Gray, about whom we know very little, is still young enough that he can be forced into evading the fate of Donald Trump, a rich kid who publicly putrefies to the detriment of us all.

Gray's only platform is that he loves Donald Trump more than Trump loves Trump, that he's a latter day opponent of wind energy, for what appears to be opportunistic, and that as a 36 year old man whose not married and not known to have a publicly acknowledged interest in any identified female, he's opposed to transvestites in women's sports.

Seems like populist bullshit.

Gray would support Trump in anything, which in the next two years is going to be extremely dangerous.  I could not vote for him.

Which left me voting for Kinney.  

Kinney is a moderate left Democrat, and I'm not. I'm sure she's for "choice" or "reproductive rights', which infanticide, and I am not.  I suspect this would be Byrd's position as well  Should she be elected, in two years I'm voting for whichever rational Republican emerges.  If a better GOP candidate emerges for the Senate, abortion would be my defining issue there as well, in six years.  The next two years are the key, however. The Democrats are going to take the House and its necessary they do so.  Giving Chuck Gray a titanic dope slap, or better yet send him crying in his knee pants back to Los Angeles, is necessary.

As for the Hageman/Byrd contest, Byrd would make a really good Senator.  If the Democrats take the Senate, we couldn't be better represented.  He has the same, I assume, pro choice problem, but my guess is that isn't deep with Byrd, but I base that on nothing other than instinct.  He would be a real voice for Wyoming and we're going to need one, should the Democrats take the Senate, and leave John Barrasso wandering around the halls of Congress giving deep stares at John Thune, or whomever.

Do I think the Democrats can take these races?  Frankly, no.  But if they do well, that sends a message to at least Hageman, who probably would moderate her positions.  Gray, if elected, will face a challenger in 2028 and be sent packing.

So here I voted a straight Democratic ticket.

The local races

I haven't said much about these.

My City of Casper ward race featured a guy with a business background facing a young women with fishing tackle on her face.  I'm not voting for fishing tackle.

The county commission race featured one incumbent, Dallas Laird, one former commissioner who was later assessor, who was not great in either role, Matt Keating, one former Casper mayor, Ray Pacheco, one Evansville former mayor, Candace Machado, and somebody else.

I had to vote for three.

I voted for Keating, Pacheco, and Machado. Two Republicans and one Democrat.

On this race, I frankly voted against Laird, who is as old as dirt.  He's been in local politics since Sitting Bull was in grammar school and it was time for him to go.  Besides, he came into office promising to do something about the county selling the hospital to Banner health, which was by then impossible to do anything about, and he didn't do anything about it. He never could have, once something is sold, it's sold. As a lawyer, he knew that, or should have known that.

I'm not keen on that sort of misrepresentation.

Pacheco I have reservations about, but he tries to please people in the best way, so I'm okay with him.

Machado is a gadfly, but down at the county, which is sort of a geezer reservoir in transition, I figure that might be a good thing.

Governor Gordon wrote an op ed opposing the property tax initiative.

(OPINION) Why passing Prop. 1 would have a devastating impact on Wyoming

As noted, I voted against this initiative which would have the impact of mostly benefitting people with really high dollar residences.

This entire cutting property tax movement strongly resembles something that was done in California some decades ago and really hurt it.  It's notable that it's strong in the Freedom Caucus camp, which is heavily populated by carpetbaggers.  They don't have the same connections to their communities that real Wyomingites do. A prime mover in the initiative was failed Gubernatorial candidate Brent Bien whom, as we've noted, spent most of his adult life sucking on the Federal Government's tit which means he didn't have to worry about local services and education like the rest of us did and do.  The element of Solidarity seems to be completely lacking in the populist far right

And that, frankly, is not a very Wyomingite or Western way of looking at things.

Footnotes:

1.  As always, I'm going with the conventional color conventions. Blue is conservative, red left of center.  This is how it is the world over.

Orange, well I used that for a distributist sort of view.  It's the color of Christian Democracy.

Last edition.

The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray and Hageman is morally unconscionable. So what to do?

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Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, October 13, 1946. Death of Vinegar Joe Stillwell, Horrific crime in Casper, The Price of Meat, French Fourth Republic.

Lex Anteinternet: Sunday, October 13, 1946. Death of Vinegar Joe Sti...: I failed to note it yesterday, but October 12, 1946, was the day that controversial World War Two General "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell ...

Sunday, October 13, 1946. Death of Vinegar Joe Stillwell, Horrific crime in Casper, The Price of Meat, French Fourth Republic.

I failed to note it yesterday, but October 12, 1946, was the day that controversial World War Two General "Vinegar Joe" Stillwell died at age 63 following surgery for stomach cancer.


Stillwell is famous for being in command of US forces in China for much of the war, where he clashed constantly with Chiang Kai-Shek.  He frequently insulted Chiang, who took it, and with Stillwell not realizing that Chiang understood the insults.  He was recalled from China in October 1944, but was slated to have command of the Tenth Army in Operation Olympic, which the end of the war kept from occurring.

Stillwell was one of the many senior military commanders who died almost immediately after the war.

The Rocky Mountain News noted the death on this day.


The murder of a woman from Denver, which occured in Casper, made the news.


I'm surprised by this, as usually I've heard of the more notorious crimes in the Casper area, and this one was horrific.  Nonetheless, I've never heard of this one.

I haven't included the article, but the price of meat was a huge deal and the news noted that Truman was going to take up the topic the following day.

It was a Sunday, so the Parade magazine section was part of the very large paper.


Meat prices, and food prices in general, continued to be a real problem into 1946.  I've posted an essay here regarding hunting during the Second World War, as that struck me as a way to try to offset rationing.  I didn't realize at the time that a related problem, availability of meat, carried on into the immediate post war era.

Lex Anteinternet: So you're living in Wyoming (or the West in genera...So what about World War Two?

One answer to whether this was common or not was interestingly provided by the J. R. Williams cartoon Out Our Way, where it was a bit of a running gag for awhile.

The post war era would not have been hampered by gasoline rationing, like wartime hunting was, which again makes me wonder to what extent some folks people supplied their tables by hunting.

Voters in France went to the polls and approved a constitution for the country's Fourth Republic.  The constitution created as weak president.

Last edition:

Friday, October 11, 1946. Cancelling conscription.

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Fully-Tacked Horse Missing Near Yellowstone's Most Remote Entrance

 

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Monday, October 12, 2026

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray and Hageman is morally unconscionable. So what to do?

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray a...:   Kristallnacht in 1938.  A lot of people who had voted for the Nazis had been stampeded there by the assertion that it was the Nazis or the...

The 2026 Election, 24th Edition. Voting for Gray and Hageman is morally unconscionable. So what to do?

 

Kristallnacht in 1938.  A lot of people who had voted for the Nazis had been stampeded there by the assertion that it was the Nazis or the Communists, both of which were populist parties.  The smiling couple probably wasn't smiling by 1945, assuming that they were both alive.

The first rule of logic:  Chesterton's Fence:

There exists in such a case a certain institution or law; let us say, for the sake of simplicity, a fence or gate erected across a road. The more modern type of reformer goes gaily up to it and says, “I don’t see the use of this; let us clear it away.” To which the more intelligent type of reformer will do well to answer: “If you don’t see the use of it, I certainly won’t let you clear it away. Go away and think. Then, when you can come back and tell me that you do see the use of it, I may allow you to destroy it."

Chesterton, The Thing. 

The second rule of logic:  Hanlon's Razor

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity.

It's tempting to say that this will be an election like no other, and indeed, I think it is in many ways.  In terms of American elections, it's the most important election, even though it's a midterm election, since the the Election of 1860.  It's the election that will determine if Trump continues to rule as an insane dictator, or if the nation can begin to turn the path towards constitutional democracy.1

Things like this make this a critical election:

On the Cornell rapes:

Letitia James is a corrupt person…And I feel badly for whoever she's looking at because they won’t get a fair shake.

He later called James a "dog".

I'm an actual conservative.  I am not a populist.  Conservatives believe that man if flawed and that we should be careful to conserve things that have worked or are part of culture until we know what the reason for casting it aside would really be.

The sixth rule of logic: Yeoman's Gate:

Before you go through a gate to get to the other side of a fence, completely figure out, to the extent you can, where the path goes.

Conservatives believe that man is fallen and that our natures and the nature of the world, in its pure form, is dictated by an outside existential, that being God to most conservatives, and nature to some.  We don't cast away easily, and we believe the Natural Law ultimately controls most things.

Conservatism has been killed by Donald Trump.

The most significant force around Trump is that of populism.  Populism believes that the "will of the people" is endowed with some sort of magic virtue. The question is, who are the people?  It's never all the people.  Populists always regard themselves as "the people" and other people as the enemy of the people.  They're easily lead by demagogues  At one time they followed Bernie Sanders around like puppies, now they follow Donald Trump.  The besotted populists believe that the will of the people is magically transmitted to Trump who is always right.  

Trump is a dangerously sick man.

Trump has never been an admirable one.  We could go into it, but people who claim he's "Godly" are rank idiots.  Indeed, a significant portion of Trump supporters at this point are the absolute bottom of the bell curve.  He's deeply immoral and is committing the United States to deeply immoral acts. Fortunately, the bloom is off the rose at this point, and it appears highly likely that the GOP, which has fallen down on its duties in Congress, will be tossed out.  Due to weirdness of Trump's cabinet, we'll have to endure Trump for two more years, probably.

The problem for real conservatives, however, and particularly for Catholics, or indeed for Catholics whether they are conservative or not, is how to vote.

In the Catholic Tradition, responsible citizenship is a virtue, and participation in political life is a moral obligation.

Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship, No. 13.

In Wyoming, some of the choices will be easy.  Eric Barlow, the Republican, is the easy choice over Democrat Ken Casner or Dixiecrat Rebecca Bextel.  It's not even close.  Effectively, the races for Governor, Secretary of State, and Superintendent of Public Education are over, and will all go to good Republican candidates.

But the candidates for the House and Senate are a nightmare.

Chuck Gray is a co-religious about whom the public knows nothing.  A far right right winger born with a silver spoon in his mouth he washed up in Wyoming as his daddy, who doesn't live here, has a radio station here.  He barely won the primary for Secretary of State, after having been an abrasive personality in the legislature, by running on lies.  Since the moment of his taking office in that position, he's been running for something else, and the House of Representatives fell to him when Harriet Hageman decided to run for retiring Cynthia Lummis' position.  

Gray has been a horrible Secretary of State and he'll be a horrible Congressman.  His campaign was basically that he loves Trump more than Trump loves Trump.  Trump is a horror.  This is a good reason not to vote for Gray, as if any additional reasons were needed.  If he wins, and he's likely to, he'll be worthless as a junior member a minority party who knows nothing about the state he's supposed to represent.

The Democrat is Lisa Kinney.  I just heard her speak, and she speaks very well.  She didn't have the chance to get into specifics, but they can be guessed at.  I'd be surprised at best if she wasn't "pro Choice", which is pro infanticide.

The Libertarian is Shaun Johnson.  I heard him speak too but he also didn't really have the chance to get into specifics.  The one interesting thing I heard him say is that he wouldn't caucus with the Republicans or the Democrats.

I don't think that Johnson has any chance.  I think Kinney has an off chance.

I suspect that if Kinney wins, Christensen will run against her in 2028 and likely take the seat.  I think he's planning on running.

The choice this year, therefore, is between Kinney and Gray.  Voting for Kinney is saying no to Trump insanity. Voting for Gray is saying yes to Trump insanity.  That's about it.

At the Senate level the Democrats have a really good candidate, James Byrd.  The Republicans have a really horrible candidate, Harriet Hageman, who stabbed Liz Cheney, a former friend of hers, in the back so that she could crawl over her dead political body to go to Washington, where reportedly she already owned a house.  If she was voted out, she'd never come back.  She's shown contempt for her own state on public lands while there, making her potentially an even worse candidate than Gray.  

She received a lot of votes in the primary, in spite of being such a horrible candidate.  It'll take a lot for Byrd to overcome it.

So here's where we are at.  We cannot vote for Gray or Hageman.  Voting for them is voting for the insanity of Donald Trump and the ongoing destruction of the American democracy.  Can we morally vote for Kinney and Byrd, or do we not vote at all on those races.  Not voting on them may very well be like voting for Gray and Hageman. It's an interesting, and paramount, moral question.

Footnotes

1. And save the "we're a republic not a democracy" crap. That's brainless twaddle.  Our Constitution creates a democratic republic and people who say that should have their right to vote, drive a car, or speak a sentence revoked.

Last edition:

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.

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Saturday, October 10, 2026

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.

Lex Anteinternet: The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets...: If something cannot go on forever, it will stop. Herbert Stein. September 23, 2026 Something is actually going on in the GOP for the first t...

The 2026 Election, 23rd Edition. Stein's Law meets the GOP. The hints of a mutiny edition.

If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.

Herbert Stein.

September 23, 2026

Something is actually going on in the GOP for the first time since the Dixiecrat MAGA insurgency took control of the party and made it a populist party.

Bit and pieces of the signs are everywhere, all of a sudden.  Stein's Law has arrived.

GOP candidates are in trouble all over the country and now they're starting to dump Trump.  A good example of this is Congressman Ashley Hinson, who is trying to do the same thing that Harriet Hageman is trying to do, which is to move into a retiring Senator's spot.  She's in real trouble in that effort and recent polls indicate that she's behind. The Republican seat appears slated to go to a Democrat.  The GOP sent out John Barrasso to stump for her, an odd choice as Barrasso isn't inspiring on his alleged home turf, but the thought must have been that the Senate Whip could show how Hinson winning would help the Dear Leader.

Well, that message didn't seem to take. So Hinson started to bolt.  From her Facebook.

Iowans are being squeezed and shouldn’t have to foot the bill at the pump or the checkout line for the war in Iran. We need to use every option at our disposal to provide some relief from high prices. 

That includes suspending the gas tax, pausing diesel exports, unleashing E-15 everywhere we can, reinstating the $1/gallon biodiesel tax credit, and creating a diesel relief program to help our farmers and truckers being crushed by the high costs. 

While doing this, we should also ensure our highway trust fund is replenished, so that Iowans don’t suffer from crumbling roads and bridges while relief comes our way now. These actions to lower costs are needed ASAP, and the war needs to be brought to a successful and immediate end.

I am working every day to deliver bipartisan results for Iowans and I will work with anyone who is ready to tackle this challenge immediately.

She otherwise demanded that the war against Iran be stopped.

Hinson had voted against the War Powers Resolution every time it's been voted on in the House, and did so just a week prior, so she's voted to keep the war rolling.  Now she wants it over.  Fuel prices are the reason why.

Closer to home, there are all of a sudden all sorts of die-hard right wingers who are criticizing Trump.  Whether that translates over to opposing Trump lover Chuck Gray and Trump supported Harriet Hageman is another thing, but there's definitely stirring in the ranks.

Indeed, Cowboy State Daily carpetbagging columnist Dave Simpson went into a "boo hoo' fit about the whole thing, wondering if the imaginary Sweet Home Alabama Wyoming he believes to have existed has gone "wobbly".

Go home Dave.  You drank too much WFC Kool aide.

Elsewhere, Wyoming teachers are organizing against the attempt to bankrupt the state:

Teachers, hospital leaders launch $1M campaign to fight property tax ballot measure

And it's been noted that Wyomingites are voting their interests:
Beyond that, the revolt is getting large enough that as early as it is, we're now seeing the non Trump GOP start to reemerge from the bunkers for the 2028 races, with Chris Christie having basically indicated that he's running.

Elections are not over, until their over, but it is clear that the GOP, and for that matter Trump, have no idea on how to hold on to the Senate, let alone the House.  Doubling down on all the old tired lines (the Red Chinese are coming to have babies, date your daughters, steal your lunch) isn't working.  The MAGA base was always the demographic that was most vulnerable to an economic downturn and now it's suffering.  Agriculture, a Republican base, can't deal with the high fuel and fertilizer prices.  Trucking can't deal with the high prices either.  Regular people don't like the high prices at the grocery store and nobody likes the high fuel prices in the West.

This can't and won't be fixed by the election. The war against Iran won't be over and fuel prices will be high unless a ban on exports tanks the price of diesel, which it likely won't.

It took a lot, but people seem to be waking up to being lied to.  Moreover, as that happens, Trump gets weirder and weirder by the day.

One place that appears now almost inevitable to go to the Democrats is Texas, where Texas Democratic Senate James Talarico has seen a 28-point swing in vote share against Ken Paxton.  

Cont:

Fresh from getting its head handed to it in the primary, where its endorsements didn't pan out for the most part, the Dixiecrat controlled central committee of the Wyoming Republican Party has endorsed the property tax cut bill that would gut local governments like fish.
Basically, the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus hates the Gubbement and figures that stuff like education and the like can be handled by Ella Mae back at home.


September 24, 2026


September 25, 2026

Dixiecrats are moving over to their rightful home:

Rod Miller wrote an op ed on this and I've been meaning to post on it, so I'll just comment here.  Bextel moving over to the Constitution Party, delusional though she is, is a good thing if it causes other Dixiecrats of the WFC to follow her, and they should.  Here, a prominent Hot Springs politician has done just that.  

The Constitution Party, which believes in a double secret constitution written in crayon and visible only through secret decoder glasses may pull over 10% in the election, which would make it a good place for people from the WFC to pack up their gray kepis and go and be "real".  As is actually they, not traditional Wyoming Republicans, who are the aberration, they'd be doing themselves a favor, they'd have more voice in the CP, but the Republican Party and the State one as well.  It'd allow the GOP to shake off the chains of the Confederacy which the WFC is attempting to bind it with.

In this environment, it might be noted, it's amazing that the Democrats can't get more traction than they are, but they aren't.  Byrd still stands a good chance, but he's about the only one outside of the very few Democrats holding seats in the legislature.

September 29, 2026

From here on out in the election we're going to see Bat Shit Crazy on full display nearly every day.

Apparently not realizing that the election is a referendum on Donald Trump, a couple weeks ago Trump urged votes to imagine he's on the ballot.

The Republican problem is that voters are doing just that.

If people think back to the 2024 Presidential Election, most voters were never very keen on Trump. The most commonly expressed opinion going into the election was that voters disliked both candidates.  The Democrats screwed themselves by running Biden, which was simply insane.  Republican voters in the primary were in part MAGA true believes, but that misses the point that a lot of Republicans have left the party.  When Biden dropped out, way too late, the Democrats did the typical Democratic thing and killed themselves by nominating a Kamala Harris, about the most irritating candidate they could have found.

2024 is in the rear view mirror of course, but what's been missed in the Trumpian Reign of Terror is that most people went into 2025 disliking Donald Trump and it's gone downhill from there, something made worse by the fact that this administration is made up of the cynical advantageous and those with some agenda, often a deluded one.

With that mix, Trump has had a free hand in acting like a mad king, and he's made the most of it.  People with an agenda, moreover, are fully exercising their one and only chance to try to pull it off.  

Trump's pretty clearly aware of this, in spite of his addled state.  It explains the constant effort to build monuments to himself.  In spite of what some in the far right Evangelical camp believe, there's pretty good reason to doubt Trump's belief in an afterlife.  He certainly hasn't lived like he believes in one.  So he's trying to make sure we remember him as a great man in terms of architecture and conquest.

It's all going to fail.

Trump doesn't seem to be able to grasp that people do not love him.  He's a narcissist who is profoundly in love with himself.  The worst, therefore, nightmare of his life is unfolding.  A lot of motivated people who range from horrified to absolute contempt are going to boot the GOP out of the House, and now it looks like the Senate, and for the very reasons that Trump has urged us to do.  They're voting on him, as the GOP has become a sycophantic personality cult.  

People don't love him.

From now until the election Trump will pull out all the stops to try to keep the result he fears from happening. Anything he can legally get away with he will try.   It'll be a long month until the election.

On not loving Trump, it's a shame Wyomingites don't have a better option to contest Chuck Gray.

Gray has made a career out of loving Trump more than Trump loves Trump. That's about all he has going for him.  We're about to send somebody completely unqualified to do anything for the State to Congress.  Would that somebody other than Johnson and Kinney were running. Neither stand a chance, and they don't really deserve to. 

If none of the above were an option in that race, that'd be the one that would win.

Speaking of Gray, Gray has been showing up at UW football games recently and having pictures taken with students.

It's pathetic.

September 30, 2026

Wyoming Secretary of State and GOP candidate for Congress Chuck Gray emerged from hiding from debate requests, while he's not going to UW football games to be photographed with students, to congratulate the Supreme Court for temporarily upholding 

October 1, 2026

The backers of a data center in Natrona County invited Republican candidates for the County Commission to tour the site and omitted the Democratic candidates.

The GOP candidates are Lisa Jamieson (Democrat), Matt Keating (Republican), Ray Pacheco (Republican), Candace Machado (Democrat) and Dallas Laird (Republican).

We haven't addressed this race much yet, but Laird is a 1,000,000 years old and needs to go.  Keating was a somewhat controversial commissioner and then a somewhat controversial assessor.  He's been battling cancer.  Pacheco is a City of Casper councilman.  Machado was a controversial mayor of Evansville.

October 4, 2026

The Gillette News Record ran an article about a Campbell County event of the meet the candidate type in Gillette for Bextel.  It was held at The Railyard, which is a restaurant in Gillette.  It's a fair sized restaurant but not huge.  Apparently about 20 people went, which shows how little interest Bextel's campaign is drawing.

Her campaign does receive media attention as she's able to run it and it's so unusual.  I hesitate to post on her regularly as it makes her look like a bigger deal than she really is.  It is interesting however.

For one thing, Bextel keeps stating the "I didn't want to do this but had to" type of line. Nobody has to run for anything. What that really means is that the Dixiecrat is suddenly awake to the fact that Wyoming isn't 1960s Alabama and is terrified of what that means.

Also, Bextel continues to use some crude language.  I guess that's no shock in this day and age but at least to some it sort of edges her towards Southern White Trash, which isn't a good look for anyone. 

Those in attendance asked why Hageman and Gray (Gray stayed at her house, apparently, while campaigning) haven't come to her support.

As if.

Politics is a backstabbing game and there's no way that Hageman and Gray are going to buck the GOP for anyone.

Some local politicians showed up, which risks their being associated with her.  I don't blame them for showing up, but the press coverage might be a deterrent to that occurring in the future.

October 5, 2026

More on the Gillette News Record article.

Bextel claims that Harriet Hageman went after Barlow in a major way in a discussion with her personally, claiming that she said he was "pure evil".  Bextel is clearly a bit baffled why Gray and Hageman don't come to her aid in her race.

She also has a theme, or maybe a sort of obsession, with "weak men", which she claims include the current Governor, Barlow, and some other male Republicans.  It's odd.

Bextel has always been a curious figure, to the extent we know anything about her, but her naivete on why Hageman and Gray (she mused she wondered what they have on Hageman), is amusing. Gray and Hageman are on a glide path to higher office, in spite of not being very good choices, and they don't want to ruin it by supporting Bextel who is a crash and dive to political oblivion.

And once again we see the South sort of rearing up in the Dixiecrat Wyoming Freedom Caucus.  Bextel crudely claimed she had bigger "balls" than Barlow and interprets them not being in Nathan Bedford Forrest's Partisan Rangers as their being weak males.  There's a certain sort of peculiar early 20th Century literary quality to this.

Becky, the Southern Damsel, coming to rescue us all. . . 

Go home Becky.

October 6, 2026

Just looking at net chatter, the boo hoo Dixiecrats who think they are conservatives are appearing to break for Bextel in surprising numbers.  She won't win, but it'll be interesting to see if the Constitution Party is able to ride her back into 10% of the vote and be qualified as a "major party".  

That wouldn't be a bad thing if it drug the Allemands, Bears, etc., over to that party, where they really belong.

I'm guessing they won't make the 10%.

As was seen in the last election, the Dixiecrat WFC is noisy as well as deluded, but it doesn't enjoy much support from real Wyomingites.

Another question is whether the Democrats are able to make 10% themselves.

They should, as one of the GOP candidates, Chuck Gray, is held widely in contempt.  The problem is that the Democrat opposing him is Lisa Kinney.  

Gail Symons wrote an op-ed on this topic for the Cowboy State Daily.


I'm seeing a lot of moderate Republicans declare support for Kinney, and some for Johnson, but both candidates are really unattractive options.  Kinney is singularly uninspiring and comes from the ancient Democrat demographic that caused the Democrats to slip into oblivion here.  If the candidate came from the Mike Sullivan wing of the party, Chuck would be doomed.  In spite of GOP support for her, Kinney is really hard to get enthusiastic about.

So is Johnson for that matter, and the Libertarians in general.

A debate would be really helpful but Chuck is hiding and won't debate.

For people like me this is really a problem.  I'd like to see Gray loose so badly that he moves to Russia and takes a job as the toilet bowl cleaner in the Kremlin, but both of the other two candidates are really lacking.  The Libertarian Party in general is always subject to a caution flag, although in Wyoming Libertarians are often moderate Republicans looking for someplace else to go following the Dixiecrat seizure of the party.

This one will be interesting to see how many people just can't vote for the other two non GOP candidates and therefore simply don't vote.  My guess is that there will be a lot.  My guess also is that Kinney will take a larger percentage of the vote than Democrats normally do on this race, which is usually about 25%.  I could see her getting at least up to 30%, maybe 35%.  I don't expect Johnson to do as well, but he might be able to draw 10%.

Overall, it's not impossible to imagine Kinney and Johnson together pull down over 50% of the vote, but probably not much more than that.  Still, if that happens, Gray will be a Congressman with the minority of the vote.

Of course, this year, who knows.  It's not completely impossible that Wyoming might elect a Democrat, although by the slimmest of margins, to the House for the first time in years.  If it did, it would have a member of what's going to be the majority party in the House, and it would really give the Freedom Caucus the middle finger salute.

It'll also be interesting to see how many votes Byrd draws.  Lummis' opponent in 2026, Merav Ben-David, drew 27% of the vote in an election in which former Congressman Lummis was going to win no matter what.  Hageman has a lot more fanatic supporters than Lummis ever did, but she also has a lot more people who detest her as well.  Byrd is a much stronger candidate than Ben-David, and Hageman has been hiding from debating him.  Hageman showed up at a town hall somewhere recently and gave her usual poor performance.  She's not good at handling negative questions at all, which is surprising given that she was a practicing attorney.  Byrd might outright slaughter her in a debate.

Hageman also is taking flak from the disaffected Dixiecrats of the Freedom Caucus.  Bextel complained in a town hall in Gillette about Hageman not endorsing her.  Hageman endorsed Degenfelder in the Governor's race which upset the Dixiecrats as they, and the GOP they control, had endorsed Bien.  Of course Trump endorsed Degenfelder, it was the point of her entire campaing, and Hageman sure wasn't going to buck Donald on that.  Still, some disaffected WFC types are now mad at Hageman a bit.   

I suspect they'll get over it, but a tiny percentage will write in Bien or just refuse to vote.  One WFC person I know fairly well has outright declared they will not support Hageman, and another gadfly local WFC member has indicated that they're writing in Bien.  

Byrd is definitely going to do better than Ben-David.  I'm guessing that Byrd will draw at least 35% of the vote.  That's not enough, of course, to get elected, but I'd also guess that Bien will still draw about 5% of the vote.  That'd still leave Hageman with 60%, and that's likely, but it's not completely impossible that she draws under 50%. 

October 7, 2026

Donald Trump, who loves Donald Trump, endorsed Carpetbagger Chuck Gray, one of the founders of the Dixiecrats in Wyoming, who has campaigned on loving Trump even more than Trump loves Trump.  Hid did so on his Twitter like platform, Raging Delusional Lies Social, stating:


The fact that Gray is a "true friend of MAGA" is the very reason that Chuck ought to be sent to be a toilet bowl scrubber in the Kremlin.  The question is who to vote for.

Former Gov. Mike Sullivan says that person should be Lisa Kinney.
Sullivan's endorsement shows how dim people have become in Wyoming, not because of the endorsement, but because the carpetbagging migrants fail to realize that Wyoming has had Democratic Governors fairly frequently until just recently.  Sullivan is a Democrat and always has been, but one of the social commentary Twitter Twits came in to accuse him of being just that, having presumed that Sullivan must be a Republican.

Sullivan was gracious to Gray, he's a gracious man, noting something that I didn't know, that he's worked for Wyoming Right To Life.  And he provided more information on Kinney than I had known.

Sullivan was a great Governor, but frankly I really doubt his endorsement will make a difference in the election.  I also doubt Donny's will.  People who are weak or lazy enough to pay attention to his endorsement were already going to vote for Chuck.

Early voting started yesterday in Ohio with people lining up before dark vote.  According to polls, Democrats turned out in larger numbers than Republicans, but Republican voters may very well not be voting for Republican candidates.

Early voting has started here in Wyoming as well.  With the races set, the major endorsements made for the most part (I'm sure more are to come), we'll close out this edition.

We'll probably also go down to the Courthouse this week and vote.

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