Sunday, April 12, 2026
Friday, April 10, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, April 10, 1926. "Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business."
Saturday, April 10, 1926. "Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business."
It was a Saturday.
Big Business and State Socialism are very much alike, especially Big Business.
Tuesday, April 7, 2026
Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Brandings Begin
Lex Anteinternet: Chris Christie on the Baby Boomers. How to make an entire demographic outraged with one fairly truthful comment. And a further comment.
From our companion blog, Lex Anteinternet:
Lex Anteinternet: Chris Christie on the Baby Boomers. How to make a...: Chris Christie said this in a C-Span interview. Baby boomers—the most selfish generation in American history, the most self-centered genera...
Chris Christie on the Baby Boomers. How to make an entire demographic outraged with one fairly truthful comment.
Chris Christie said this in a C-Span interview.
Baby boomers—the most selfish generation in American history, the most self-centered generation, the least sacrificing generation American history. You look at Biden and Trump in particular, and they personify thatI commented on it on Twitter, defending what he said.
There's a large element of truth to it.
People reacted overall to the statement with outrage. Lots of Boomers died in Vietnam, it was pointed out.
Biden and Trump sure didn't serve in Vietnam.
Christie is fat, was all some people could say. Well, yep, Christie is fat, and Biden and Trump are demented due to age. I'll take fat over demented (indeed, from personal experience I'll note that demented people really like to point out when somebody is fat, oddly enough, and Trump does that a lot).
There are "some" good Boomers. Oh come on, there are lots and lots of good Boomers. Defending a generation with a reserved "some" means the person making the statement basically agrees with the underlying comment.
"Biden isn't a boomer". True, he was born in 1942, not 1945. But as one person posted in reply to that, "he's close enough".
"Christie is a boomer". Yeah, so what? And to add to that, he really isn't. Both the Biden comment (1942) and this one (Christie was born in 1962) point out that the guardrails to generations are somewhat fluid. Moreover, the fact that late Boomers in no way whatsoever fit into the Boomer generation has caused later demographers to define them as being in Generation Jones. Their experiences, including getting the shaft from Boomers, is completely different from the real Boomers.
And indeed, Boomers just can't grasp that. There's a lot, and I do mean a lot, of discontent, and even outright animosity, towards the Boomers, and its largely justified.
Boomers are a unique generation. There are a lot of them, for one thing, but they also came into the country at a unique time. They were the children of the generation that was young during the Great Depression and which fought World War Two. We're not going to use the "Greatest Generation" moniker here, as while that generation is admirable, it doesn't deserve that title.
The World War Two Generation was a broken one. As with the Boomers, you can't take a sweeping statement like that and apply it to everyone, but there are generational characteristics. That generation's attachment to home and family was weakened by the desperation of the Depression. As an example, my mother was pulled out of school at age 16 in order to work, and while she was always close to her family, she left home when still a teenager as she was tired of her income being treated as just the family's, and not her. Her mother begged her to stay, and then begged her to return. She didn't (she lived with an uncle who gave her a job across the continent).
And an entire generation of men was trained to kill with a large number of them actually experiencing that. Killing other people, particularly in that fashion, is not normal, and every other human vice opens up after it. Not everyone who killed or was trained to kill engaged in that vice, but more did than Americans cared to acknowledge. That helped bring about postwar domestic instability everywhere, with some of those Boomers born not so much into idyllic families but into ones that were struggling with parental infidelity, violence, brutality and alcoholism. Not all, to be sure, but more than you might suspect.
They also came home to a United States in an economic boom which meant a massive transfer in economic status for people who hadn't expected it and who didn't really know how to handle it. Those pictures of ideal American families in the 50s don't address a culture that was beginning to be taken ever by consumerism.
By the time the first Boomers, the real ones, were entering their adulthood all that was in full bloom. And their parents wanted them to be free of the horrors that had been inflicted upon them, so they handed them educations and businesses when they were young, not trying to really hold on to them.
The Baby Boom Generation early on figures that all the rules that preceded were stupid, and like people who succeed in business and life early on (the latter of which they really didn't), they came to believe they were really smart. And they often held the generations, including Generation Jones, that came behind them in contempt. Handed businesses, they wouldn't hand them over. Handed advantage, they didn't see that they needed to help others obtain it. Handed wealth, they felt free to use to use it for personal and societal destruction.
American society has become one, as one commentator noted, that's being run by oligarchs. Well, the Boomer focus on money, making it, and career, which really started to come into focus in the 1970s, helped get us there. The mess they made of their family lives and indeed even the topic of sex, in which everything was all about themselves, has made a mess of domestic life that current generations are trying to fix.
And they won't let go of things now.
And that's the main thing.
Now, let me take a step back. I've written here as if all the Boomers are a monolith. They are not.
Thousands of men volunteered to fight in Vietnam, and a lot of them did not come back. Environmentalism, which the Republicans have struggled against, was something started by their parents, but which was adopted to an enormous degree, had a huge positive impact, may have saved the planet for generations, and my save it in its entirety yet. The same is true of conservationism, which dates back well over a century but which was very well expressed in the Boomers. The combined legacy of environmentalism and conservationism is so deep that younger generations truly cannot grasp it.
So then, what of reality?
Well, the record is mixed. It always was. The World War Two generation did save the country, but in doing so they were rising to a challenge that they had to, and many sacrificed not only their bodies, but frankly their temperaments. The Silent Generation built much of the post war world in their shadows and without their acknowledgement, even fighting a war without complaint that costs the US as many lives as the Vietnam War but which is in fact largely forgotten. The country started yielding to the young Boomers by the 60s and in their heyday they tore everything down and when they went to build back up, they managed to forget and dump much of the humanity that had characterized prior generations, no matter how flawed they were.
So what now?
The old order changeth yielding place to new And God fulfills himself in many ways Lest one good custom should corrupt the world. Comfort thyself: what comfort is in me I have lived my life and that which I have done May he within himself make pure but thou If thou shouldst never see my face again Pray for my soul. More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of.Alfred Lord Tennyson.
Boomers can rightfully take credit for some great things, although the current ones, in the age of Trump, don't seem to want to. They can be blamed for a lot of things that caused the rise of Trump and MAGA, which is a movement largely in younger generations, something that's often missed. The liberal "Me Generation" aspect of the demographic was harmful in ways that we are still desperately trying to recover from, and turning, oddly, to Boomers who exhibit the trait, such as Trump, to try to fix.
They won't.
The Boomers want to remain relevant. Post anything on this topic and you'll be accused of agism. But the truth is, they needs to step back to the sidelines now in everything they are in. The biggest favor they can do for Gen X and Gen Y (it's too late for Gen. Jones, our day is already over having never started) is to step back, and out of the way. If in office, get out. If heading a business that isn't you alone, step down. If hoping for a Bishopric, stop.
Time to yield.
Monday, April 6, 2026
Pope Leo's 2026 Easter Address.
Brothers and sisters,
Christ is risen! Happy Easter!
For centuries, the Church has joyfully sung of the event that is the origin and foundation of her faith: “Yes, Christ my hope is arisen / Christ indeed from death is risen / Have mercy, victor King, ever reigning” (Easter Sequence).
Easter is the victory of life over death, of light over darkness, of love over hatred. It is a victory that came at a very high price: Christ, the Son of the living God (cf. Mt 16:16), had to die — and die on a cross — after suffering an unjust condemnation, being mocked and tortured, and shedding all his blood. As the true immolated Lamb, he took upon himself the sin of the world (cf. Jn 1:29; 1 Pet 1:18–19) and thus freed us all — and with us, all creation — from the dominion of evil.
But how was Jesus able to be victorious? What is the strength with which he defeated once and for all the ancient adversary, the prince of this world (cf. Jn 12:31)? What is the power with which he rose from the dead, not returning to his former life, but entering into eternal life and thus opening in his own flesh the passage from this world to the Father?
This strength, this power, is God himself for he is Love who creates and generates, Love who is faithful to the end and Love who forgives and redeems.
Christ, our “victorious King,” fought and won his battle through trusting abandonment to the Father’s will, to his plan of salvation (cf. Mt 26:42). Thus he walked the path of dialogue to the very end, not in words but in deeds: to find us who were lost, he became flesh; to free us who were slaves, he became a slave; to give life to us mortals, he allowed himself to be killed on the cross.
The power with which Christ rose is entirely nonviolent. It is like that of a grain of wheat which, having rotted in the earth, grows, breaks through the clods, sprouts, and becomes a golden ear of wheat. It is even more like that of a human heart which, wounded by an offense, rejects the instinct for revenge and, filled with compassion, prays for the one who has committed the offense.
Brothers and sisters, this is the true strength that brings peace to humanity, because it fosters respectful relationships at every level: among individuals, families, social groups, and nations. It does not seek private interests, but the common good; it does not seek to impose its own plan, but to help design and carry out a plan together with others.
Yes, Christ’s resurrection is the beginning of a new humanity; it is the entrance into the true promised land, where justice, freedom, and peace reign, where all recognize one another as brothers and sisters, children of the same Father who is Love, Life, and Light.
Brothers and sisters, through his resurrection, the Lord confronts us even more powerfully with the dramatic reality of our freedom. Before the empty tomb, we can be filled with hope and wonder, like the disciples, or with fear like the guards and the Pharisees, forced to resort to lies and subterfuge rather than acknowledge that the one who had been condemned is truly risen (cf. Mt 28:11–15)!
In the light of Easter, let us allow ourselves to be amazed by Christ! Let us allow our hearts to be transformed by his immense love for us! Let those who have weapons lay them down! Let those who have the power to unleash wars choose peace! Not a peace imposed by force, but through dialogue! Not with the desire to dominate others, but to encounter them!
We are growing accustomed to violence, resigning ourselves to it, and becoming indifferent. Indifferent to the deaths of thousands of people. Indifferent to the repercussions of hatred and division that conflicts sow. Indifferent to the economic and social consequences they produce, which we all feel. There is an ever-increasing “globalization of indifference,” to borrow an expression dear to Pope Francis, who one year ago from this loggia addressed his final words to the world, reminding us: “What a great thirst for death, for killing, we witness each day in the many conflicts raging in different parts of the world!”
The cross of Christ always reminds us of the suffering and pain that surround death and the agony it entails. We are all afraid of death, and out of fear we turn away, preferring not to look. We cannot continue to be indifferent! And we cannot resign ourselves to evil! Saint Augustine teaches: “If you fear death, love the resurrection!”. Let us too love the resurrection, which reminds us that evil is not the last word, because it has been defeated by the Risen One.
He passed through death to give us life and peace: “I leave you peace; I give you my peace. Not as the world gives it, I give it to you” (Jn 14:27). The peace that Jesus gives us is not merely the silence of weapons, but the peace that touches and transforms the heart of each one of us! Let us allow ourselves to be transformed by the peace of Christ! Let us make heard the cry for peace that springs from our hearts! For this reason, I invite everyone to join me in a prayer vigil for peace that we will celebrate here in Saint Peter’s Basilica next Saturday, April 11.
On this day of celebration, let us abandon every desire for conflict, domination, and power, and implore the Lord to grant his peace to a world ravaged by wars and marked by a hatred and indifference that make us feel powerless in the face of evil. To the Lord we entrust all hearts that suffer and await the true peace that only he can give. Let us entrust ourselves to him and open our hearts to him! He is the only one who makes all things new
Happy Easter!
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Do the right thing.
Do the right thing.
Today is, of course, Easter.
I saw a comment from a blog I've sort of followed where the poster fairly frequently remarks that he's a fallen away Catholic, although at the same time his world outlook is obviously Catholic. Today he chose to explain why he fell away.
What's struck me over the years is that an awful lot of people who take that path fall away as they're self centered. The post made that really clear. Supposedly he couldn't reconcile the message of the Church and the direction of society. That's not a reason to fall away, that's the very reason we need to be saved. Without Christ, we're just a bunch of self centered whiners out to destroy ourselves.
Religion is not magic, which some people seem to think it is. Christians discuss the problem of evil, but part of the reason that evil is in the world as we have free will and we like it. I saw a comment from a Monk once reflecting, and he meant it, that he asked the question "God, why do you law injustice in the world?" and actually got a reply, that being "Why do you?"
We know what's wrong and right and frequently just choose what's wrong. The big Mega Churches will be packed today with "Christians" who are on multiple divorces and remarriages, or just living in sin, even though we all know that's wrong. For that matter, Catholic churches will be packed today with those who only make it to Mass twice a year.
That's not to be lamented. It's a sign of hope. We know what's wrong. We're often just to lazy and accommodating to do what's right.
Today is a good day to start doing what's right, including comporting our actual conduct to God and the the nature God created.
Straying from this a bit, I'd note how overarching this really is. While I can't get into details very much, recently I've been dealing with a massive inter personal fight between two people I've known for a long time. Both are flat out wrong.
One of them is now upset with somebody that he once deeply loved as that person harshly criticized him. Frankly, the nature of the criticism was brutal. I've been criticized by the same person brutally myself, but I haven't lived a particularly sheltered life so I learned to just disregard it and the person eventually wondered on. This person, however, hero worshipped the person who turned on him.
Additionally, there's an element of financial stress going on in there somewhere and while the person in question regards themselves as a very devout Christian, it's really clear that their concept of Christianity involves a deep love of the Church and its sacraments, but not so much some of its lessons, including the one that holds love of money is the root of all sin.
It's a classic failing.
The other person is an archetypical Baby Boomer. For some reason a lot of Boomers just can't let go. Handed everything early on, they really became the "Me" generation of the 70s. This person really only has their work left, as his marriage fell apart and for the classic reasons, and, well, I won't go into it. At some point if you were the center of all of your major life choices, however, all you have left, is you, and that isn't much.
Our current President, and indeed our last, both epitomized that Boomer view in some ways. Trump has lived the Playboy lifestyle and his soul is imperiled. He's also endangering us all, and all because to him, it's all about him.
Christ came to save humanity, but we're supposed to participate in that. The road is fairly clear. We're to try to take the narrow one. Americans seemingly think that doesn't apply to them, and wonder why they're miserable.
Χριστὸς ἀνέστη!
Ἀληθῶς ἀνέστη!
Do the right thing.
Monday, March 30, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei?
Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei?
A man who has conquered others, should conquer himself
Pope Leo the Great to Atilla the Hun. He never did. He died following drinking too much on his wedding night.
Some evangelical Christians excuse Trump's lack of Christian adherence by casting him as Cyrus the Vance, the Persian Emperor who was not Jewish, but who regarded himself as appointed by God and whom advanced the cause of the the Jews. In their minds, the non believer Trump is advancing the cause of (Protestant) Christianity.
More of his Christian loyalists, however, come from a certain Christian worldview that's very strong in the US, but only in the US, the comforting, but completely false, "once saved, always saved" view of Christianity.
It's expressed here in the misunderstood posting of one Franklin Graham.
Saturday, March 28, 2026
Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: East Line
Friday, March 27, 2026
Thursday, March 26, 2026
Wednesday, March 25, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, March 25, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire. Serving as a reminder that Capital doesn't care that much about you.
Lex Anteinternet: Saturday, March 25, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist...: 146 garment workers—123 women and girls and 23 men, out of a workforce of 500, died in Manhattan's horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Factory ...
Saturday, March 25, 1911. The Triangle Shirtwaist Factor Fire.
146 garment workers—123 women and girls and 23 men, out of a workforce of 500, died in Manhattan's horrific Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire. Most of the victims were Italian or Jews immigrants 14 to 23 years old. 62 of the victims jumped to their deaths.
The fabric fire in the fireproof building broke out five minutes before end of shift. The doors to the stairwells and exits were locked to prevent unauthorized breaks and to reduce theft
Monday, March 20, 1911. Stolypin resigns, and then is back.
Tuesday, March 24, 2026
Marilyn Monroe and the Wedding Industrial Complex
Saturday, March 23, 1946. Marilyn Monroe and the Wedding Industrial Complex. Truman warns Stalin, and holds up testing the bomb. No public necking in Japan.
A really interesting Richard C. Miller photograph of Marilyn Monroe was taken, which we learned of due to Reddit's 80 Years Ago Sub, and which we repost here via fair use.
Actual photograph of Monroe at her first wedding, when she was 16 years old.
The Wedding Industrial Complex
Notes from the Spesia Underground
A really interesting episode.
This really fascinating look at modern weddings brings up a whole host of things we routinely discuss here, including agrarianism and subsidiarity. The episode from Catholic Stuff You Should Know points out the extent that weddings were, at at the time the photo of Norma Jean was taken above still remained, community affairs and not big bride focused shows.
We've lost a lot here.
And we really need to recapture it.
While indelicate, this also shows the portrayal of a really beautiful woman before Playboy perverted all of that.
Monroe was, as is well known, Playboy's first, and unwilling, centerfold. But what's interesting here is that prior to Playboy arriving on the scene, this was not an uncommon depiction of a really beautiful woman. There were, of course, already some women who were focused on for being really busty, Jane Russell giving an example, but the theme did not absolutely dominate. To look at the 19 year old Monroe here, you would not have thought of her in that fashion. A decade later, you would, and even after Life intervened to push her nude photograph first as an art item. We've dealt with that before here as well, although frankly we need to modify our entry. That post is here:
Appearance. Shape and being in shape and women (men will come next).
Also posted via fair use, Colliers had an article on keeping everyone employed year around, showing how times were in fact changing.
We've looked at that here too.
Women in the Workplace: It was Maytag that took Rosie the Riveter out of the domestic arena, not World War Two
Tucker Carlson: “There's not a single Western city that's thriving"
Here's a thought (other than Carlson is a twat waffle, but that's obvious).
Maybe that's because cities are dumpster fires in general and without a thriving Agrarian Class, they're really pointless concentrations of the dispirited.
Monday, March 23, 2026
Sunday, March 22, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Supporting Immorality in War is Immoral.
Supporting Immorality in War is Immoral.
III. SAFEGUARDING PEACE
Avoiding war
2309 The strict conditions for legitimate defense by military force require rigorous consideration. The gravity of such a decision makes it subject to rigorous conditions of moral legitimacy. At one and the same time:
- the damage inflicted by the aggressor on the nation or community of nations must be lasting, grave, and certain;
- all other means of putting an end to it must have been shown to be impractical or ineffective;
- there must be serious prospects of success;
- the use of arms must not produce evils and disorders graver than the evil to be eliminated. The power of modem means of destruction weighs very heavily in evaluating this condition.
These are the traditional elements enumerated in what is called the "just war" doctrine.
The evaluation of these conditions for moral legitimacy belongs to the prudential judgment of those who have responsibility for the common good.
Section 2309, Catechism of the Catholic Church.
Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the United States Constitution:
[The Congress shall have Power . . . ] To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water; . . .
The American war against Iran is not a just war. It's not a legal one, either.
Iran is a world sponsor of terrorism that has sponsored terroristic acts for decades. Most of those acts of terror were against other sovereign states, not the US, but some can logically be argued to be directed at the us. That's almost certainly not what the war is about.
Much more likely, Trump is a pathetic doddering senile fool who has spent a life of utter pointlessness. His wealth is inherited and founded originally on a grandfather who engaged in providing prostitutes to Alaska miners, a gravely evil act. His father did nothing like that, but the family wealth was used to build more wealth, and Trump in his adult years, after not serving his country (a family tradition to some extent) went on to make and lose fortunes doing that.
Real estate development is, from an agrarian and distributism prospective like that I maintain, a fairly dubious occupation in and of itself. Not clearly immoral, but frankly I have real trouble with some of it. Be that as it may, I particularly have trouble with the sort of behavior that Trump exhibited in that questionable occupation. I wouldn't admire the Wharton graduate for that reason alone. But the way he has spent his wealth is abominable. He's a serial polygamist and its getting very difficult to say "there's no evidence" that he didn't sexually fish in the shallow end of the pond.
There's more credible evidence that he's a kiddy diddler, which I'm not affirmatively saying there is, than that he's a Christian. There's not one single outwardly Christian act that I can think of that he's committed. What he is, is a shallow opportunist, and he's used desperate Christians to advance his career.
Knowing that the grave is looming up on him, and with his mind slipping away from him at a rapid rate, Trump has spent much of his second, illegitimate, occupation of the White House trying to build monuments to himself. He wants a ball room as he's a rich product of the 60s and 70s when things like that mattered to somebody. They don't anymore, and it'll either never be built, or ripped down. He wants a triumphal arch, which is simply absurd.
And he wants to be remembered as a great hero, adding to the US landmass, or at least defeating a supposed major enemy.
Benjamin Netanyahu, who is a scary man in his own right, but not a demented fool, saw that he could play the demented fool in the White House. Netanyahu, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather, sees the Trump dotage as a time to "address all family business". Seeing a dolt he could play, like Putin has, he's coaxed Trump into a war for Israel's own purposes. This is, the way Netanyahu sees it, Israel's last best hope to destroy the radical Islamist regime in Tehran. Israel can't do it on its own, and no future US administration will support doing it. Israel is not held in that high of regard in much of the world for a variety of reasons, and never has been. Nobody else is going to play the willing muscled fool for Netanyahu. If Netanyahu is Corleone, Trump is Luca Brasi, a brutish dolt who is willing to act as an enforcer.
Trump entered this war thinking it would be a two or three day exercise. He'd bomb Iran and the Iranian people would give up. Or, maybe, Iranians theocrats would act like American property owners and cut him a deal. Well, say what you like about Shiite theocrats, but they're a lot less shallow than American businessmen. They hold to an existential, and unlike Trump it's not all about money and women.
Oh oh.
So they didn't give up and they aren't going to give up. They've fought back by striking economic targets and U.S. military installations around the Middle East (and now as far away as Diego Garcia). And they've closed the Straits of Hormuz.
By closing the Straits, they've also demonstrated that the US is, in fact, not as powerful as it pretends it is. We can't open them and we've been begging for help. Nobody else is willing to get into an endless war for Israel, and therefore that help isn't coming. In order to open them we will have to engage in a ground invasion.
Trump is trying desperately to avoid that, for a variety of reasons. One thing is that he's probably been told it will be a bloody mess. Body bags will be coming home to "Red" cities all around the country. People already don't support the war and they definitely will not when Johnny or Mary come home to be buried in Riverton Wyoming, or Billings Montana, having died for Bibi Netanyahu.
And then there's this:
There's not going to be a draft, but the satiric suggestions that he serve are not wholly ingenuine. Right now, the US is getting into one war after another. Franklin Roosevelt's children served, so did TR's. Why not Trump's?
Because Trumps don't serve the country, they take from it. That's why.
In his desperation to end the war, Trump is now threatening to bomb Iranian power facilities if they do not open the Straits of Hormuz. He broadcast this on social media, which is idiotic It also won't work. The Allied bombing campaigns against Germany did not work in World War Two. They didn't work, save for the Atomic bomb, against Japan, either. Nor did they work against North Vietnam. They won't work here. Instead, civilians will be killed and whatever support for a new regime replacing this one in Iran exists, will evaporate.
What Trump is doing is criminal. The US is killing people for. . . what?
The whole war is criminal from the first place, from a US prospective. We're using military force to kill people with no declaration of war. And now we propose to engage in a tit for tat campaign of economic retribution against them as we can't beat them. We haven't been able to articulate a single reason for the war, other than Iran cannot be allowed to have the same thing that Israel, the United States, France, Russia, North Korea, the United Kingdom, Indian, Pakistan, and South Africa have. . . an atomic bomb.
There is some logic to that, of course. An Iran with an atomic bomb would be scary, just like North Korea with an atomic bomb is scary. But given our ill thought out military adventure here, we are actually making this situation worse. North Korea, it might be noted, is improving missile capabilities, and why wouldn't they. If North Korea has not determined an absolute need to be able to hit the continental United States due to Donald Trump, it'd be amazing. And if Iran, which has its nuclear material yet, has not concluded that it has an absolute need to complete a nuclear project, that would be amazing.
But it's clear that Trump never thought this out. He went, we're told, with his gut, which is nearly always wrong.
So, here we are in this long winded thread.
And here's to the point. Supporting immorality, is immoral. Everyone engages in "remote cooperation with evil", which you can not do much about. Using illegal drugs is illegal, but paying the pizza guy when you know he's going to use some of that cash for illegal drugs isn't.
Here, we now have an interesting situation.
We are in an illegal war and doing immoral acts. The Republicans in Washington are mostly sitting around on their ass doing nothing about it. They're afraid. They're not paid nor elected to be afriad.
And all over the country the MAGA element of the GOP just lies down like the 13 year old girls at Epstein Island and gives into whatever Trump wants.
It's immoral.
For years and years Christians, particularly those of my faith, voted for Republicans in spite of reluctance because we opposed abortion and the Democratic Party supported it. Even as late as the last election I heard Catholics with severe doubts about Trump say they were voting for him for that reason.
Abortion is a grave moral evil. Engaging in an illegal war and targeting civilian targets is a grave moral evil.
I'm not saying vote for the Democrats without thinking, but I am saying that supporting this Administration and the Republican Party at this point is supporting moral evil. When John Barrasso and Harriet Hageman come around backing the war, they're backing a moral evil. When Chuck Gray declares his undying love for Trump and promises to be the most loyal of his political concubines, he's expressing a love of a moral evil.
Most Germans during the Nazi era did nothing. Most Republicans aren't going to either. In future years, they'll be looked at with utter disgust.
Christians believe that they'll have to account for their sins in the next world. I very much doubt that bothers Donald Trump as he's stupid and ignorant, which is sort of a defense, and I very much question if he has any belief in God at all. For that matter, while I have only the incidents to raise the question, I doubt the beliefs of many in Congress who claim they have one. For those of us who do believe, and frankly a person who doesn't has simply blinded themselves to reality, it's all too easy to believe that our self interest must be moral. Protestant churches have, for instance, by and large completely given up on being concerned about sexual morality for the most part.
God will not be mocked. Christians who declare Trump to be a "Godly Man" are willfully blinding themselves or outright lying. None of us are around here all that long. The "why did you support the murder of my children" question is coming up, and the "well, I supported Trump", or "well, the Iranians were baddies", or "well, the Iranians were Muslims" line is not likely to be a sufficient excuse for being complicit in murder.
Footnotes
*This may seem like a strange point to start in this thread, but wars routinely devolve, even when they fit the just war criteria, into flat out murder and the US has not been exempt from this. Arguably the cleanest war the US ever fought was World War One, with the Korean War being relatively clean. World War Two may be recalled as a uniformly just war, but the bombing campaigns against urban Japan and the use of nuclear weapons was outright not. And the tolerance of what is depicted above, which was very widespread, was not.
Saturday, March 21, 2026
Friday, March 20, 2026
It ain't pork if its served at your table.
It's weird how the fiscal responsibility can bust the budget, and fund local projects to boot.
Hageman Announces $100 Million To Fix Collapsed Goshen County Irrigation Tunnel
Granted, I feel this is a really excellent use of public money. A far better use than $200B to blow up every petroleum facility in the Middle East, but let's be honest, it's socialism, or if it isn't, it's the American System. Let's pretend its that, even if that means that the GOP had found, well, Socialism, once again.
Thursday, March 19, 2026
Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: First Calf
Wednesday, March 18, 2026
Monday, March 16, 2026
Nebraska is burning and its time to stop pretending this is normal.
Actually, that time was some time ago, but for those "clean coal" and "drill baby drill" people, you are converting the planet into an image of Hell.
It's not too late to address this, but it'll take major action. The good news is that a nation that can waste billions of dollars on a war with Iran for no reason whatsoever, can afford to address it, and reverse it.
And not only, that, the rest of the world is leaping ahead of us in alternative energy systems, including China in spite of what the dolt in the White House says.
Simply believing that because we've always done things one way means its okay, or that our pocketbooks depend on coal and oil mean sit okay, is absolute lunacy. The day of fossil fuels either needs to end, or they'll end us.
And as a final note, all too often I've heard farmers and ranchers take the global warming is a fib line. This year, there's no water in the west, none coming, and there will be none . We won't be growing anything.
Wake up.
Lex Anteinternet: The end of the American Century and planning for what comes next.
The end of the American Century and planning for what comes next.
Donald Trump is systematically accelerating American decline making what might have happened over a two or more decades, had the existing trends remained and the U.S. not corrected itself, take place over a matter of months.
By the end of the Trump presidency, even if that end happens this year with him being taken out of the White House in a straight jacket, the US will not be the world's dominant economic power. China will be, followed by the European Union. The US will not be the leader of the free world, that's already ceased to be the case. The EU is. The US won't even be the moral leader of North America. Canada is.
And thanks to the war with Iran, the US is rapidly ceasing to be the military power it once was. Traditionally declining global powers lose that status last, and I suppose that's what's happening to us, but in a matter of months rather than decades, as is the norm. We are, right now, losing a war with a third rate power and we don't even know why we are fighting it, other than that Bibi Netanyahu wanted it fought while he had somebody he could coax in the White House. Right now, nations that looked to us since 1939 for help are quitting that, or have quit. Maybe only a few remain in the Pacific, but that will end within a matter of months.
Had Trump not pushed this all into high gear, it might have happened over a long period of time anyhow. The US hasn't been in control of its budget for decades and that was going to cause this to occur no matter what. We might have been able to arrest that with a major effort, but that would have required most of the current members of Congress to get new jobs. Now, however, things are so accelerated much of this is just going to happen all on its own.
Americans had better get used to it quickly and, for that matter, they'd better start planning for a post Trump world where we dance to the tune called by others, not to the one we called.
While we can lament this in many ways, not all of it will be bad. We will have to start rebuilding coalitions, but we're going to have to accept that we'll be regarded as a junior, and stupid, member of them. We deserve that. We're going to start building green energy and the like as people are going to tell us to and we're going to like it. People like Chuck Gray who run around screaming "not on my watch" will be looking at green power in California by the end of 2027.
We're going to have to look at reforming our tax and economic structure. A lot of the giant moneybucks people like Musk will be leaving anyhow. They love money, not the country, and the money will be leaving. We're going to have to pay for what we buying, and what the Baby Boomer and their parents bought, in terms of a government. Foreign countries are going to give us no choice. We're not going to be the world's banker within the next two years.
People who worried about "forever wars" and the like, after the war against Iran is over, won't have to so much anymore. They'll get what they wanted, just not the way they wanted it. We'll crawl back to our alliances, but we'll be a comparative minor member in many ways. As we can't pay for the huge military we have, we likely won't have it. I'll look at that in another post.
Nothing lasts forever and you don't appreciate the good things, in many cases, while you have them. Trump hasn't done the United States one single favor in either of his administrations. He'll go down in history as the worst President in American history. His legacy will be the acceleration of the end of the American Century.
Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Checking Cows
Sunday, March 15, 2026
Saturday, March 14, 2026
Wyoming Catholic Cowboys - raw and real: Heavy Ranching
Wednesday, March 11, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Giving up completely on the GOP.
Giving up completely on the GOP.
I've noted my political history here before.
I'm a Westerner and an Irish Catholic. That informs my vote pretty heavily.
When I first registered to vote Ronald Reagan was President. Marine Corps Raider veteran Ed Herschler, a Democrat, was the Governor of Wyoming. D-Day veteran Teno Roncolio, also a Democrat, was our Congressman. Republicans Malcolm Wallop and Alan Simpson were our Senators.
That was sort of the political landscape here at the time. More Republicans than Democrats, but there were still Democrats, and those Democrats tended to be pretty tough conservative people. Republicans were already tacking off into batshit crazy economic theories but they weren't completely bathed in them yet.
I registered as a Republican.
I didn't stay a Republican for a really long time. I don't recall when exactly I switched parties, but by the time I was at the University of Wyoming, I had registered Democratic. I stayed in the Democratic Party for a long time. I was still a Democrat when I became a lawyer and I know that I was when I was married. However, sometime after that, I couldn't stand the sea of blood the Democratic Party had become. I became an independent.
As an independent you missed the primaries pretty much, however, and starting in the Clinton era in general Wyoming Democrats began to drift over to the GOP. After all, the mainstream of the Democratic Party wasn't all that different from the traditional mainstream of the local GOP. After awhile, I registered as a Republican.
Little far right Dixiecrats like Chuck Gray like to scream that people like me are "RINOs", when in fact they're the malignant innovation into the GOP. That element hadn't entered the GOP at the time I was first in it, and didn't for a long time. Gray himself, who nobody really knew anything about, was probably the first, followed by Jeanette Ward, who served one term in the legislature before losing a bid to retain her seat. While she lost, that showed the direction things were headed in. Carpetbaggers who knew nothing about their state moved in and wanted to convert it into pre 1964 Alabama.
It's not as if the Democrats stood still. As moderate Wyoming Democrats left the party, it too became delusional. If the Republicans became increasingly fascistic or Dixiecratic, the Democrats lived intellectually in the Greenwich Villages' Stonewall Inn in 1969. It made going back into the Democratic Party an outright impossibility for people like myself, particularly as they lashed themselves increasingly to abortion and perversion.
More recently, I'll note, that seems to be wearing off. The Democrats are still "pro choice", but they don't talk much about it. For that matter Republicans who were really gung ho on being pro life have sort of lost their fire for that as well, following the lead of Orange Mussolini.
What the Republican Party, nationally, has become is flat out insane. No thinking person can be a member of it and be comfortable.
There are still good Republicans here in Wyoming. They began a big fight against the Dixiecrats prior to the legislature and largely prevailed this session, in spite of the fact that the diehard adherents of The Lost Cause were theoretically in control of the solons. That should give local Republicans who aren't literally whistling Dixie some hope.
But with the current national Trumpites in control, the line has been drawn.
For years people like Dixiecrat Chuck Gray, or Dixicrat Bextel, have claimed that the Republican Party here was infiltrated with Democrats. Well, it was. They're the Democrats. Democrats from 1960 Alabama. They just don't know it. But the screaming lunacy that they've espoused does have an effect after awhile. Yell at people that "you are a RINO" for long enough, and they'll take it up.
I'm remaining registered in the GOP. Chuck Gray's efforts to disenfranchise voters has been enough for me in and of itself not to change registrations. Frankly, if I was to take a run at the House of Representatives, and I've thought about it, I would switch parties as right now that would give a person a place in the November election no matter what. But I'm not going to do that. I'm old, worn out, and very tired.
So I'm remaining in the GOP in no small part so that I can vote for the decent primary candidates, of which there are some right now.
At this point, merely stating that you are "pro Trump" will be enough to cross my vote for you off the list. At least three House candidates are promising to be Trump's biggest lover, and they're all of the list. I hope I run into some of them during their campaigns. I probably will.
And I've already quit giving MAGAs in my midst slack. Frankly, since the start of the assault on Iran, that's been easy, as the "never war" MAGAs can't explain that one without sounding like hypocrites, and they know it. Even a few have begun to look as if Valentines to Trump weren't a good idea.
But in the Fall. I'm not voting for any Republicans for anything.
That won't exactly be easy. So far here only one candidate from the Democratic Party has signed on to run for a statewide office. He has my vote even though I like the only Republican whose announced for the same position. And just because I'm not voting for a Republican doesn't mean I will vote for Democrats. In my state house district a really decent Republican holds the seat and a young woman from the Democratic Party has announced against him. She's already on the sea of blood ticket. I can't vote for her, but I won't vote for the Republican I've voted for many times before.
To vote for Republicans in 2026 you have to accept that a low IQ, deranged, octogenarian should have complete dictatorial control over the Federal Government, can start major wars on his own, can demolish parts of the White House as he has the tastes of a bordello owner, can cause the hiding of files on a major pedophile ring, and can have a domestic army occupy the streets. It also means you have to be willing to sacrifice the environment of the planet for scientific denial. You have to be willing to endorse lies at a never before seen rate, which makes you a liar yourself if you do.
I can't go there.