Showing posts with label The second Trump administration. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The second Trump administration. Show all posts
Friday, April 24, 2026
Monday, April 13, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and Special edition. Attacking the Catholic Church.
Lex Anteinternet: The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and S...: April 13, 2026. The number of Catholics in the world: Over 1,422,000,000, with the number growing. The number of Catholics in the United St...
The 25th Amendment Watch List. A Fourteenth and Special edition. Attacking the Catholic Church.
April 13, 2026.
The number of Catholics in the world: Over 1,422,000,000, with the number growing.
The number of Catholics in the United States: Between 50,000,000 and 70,000,000, with the number growing.
The number of Orthodox in the world 260,000,000
The number of Orthodox Christians in the United States: 2,600,000.
The number of Protestants in the world: 600,000,000 to 1,000,000,000.
The number of Protestants in the United States 140,000,000 to 150,000,000, of which 10 to 15% are mainline protestants, and of which the largest denomination is the American Baptist Conference, which includes 13,000,000 to 15,000,000 members.
The Catholic Church, all rites (the Roman Rite is the largest by far) is the largest single church in the world and the largest single church in the United States, in spite of the United States being a protestant nation.
The second largest church in the world are the Orthodox, meaning that the Apostolic Churches, those which go all the way back to the Apostles, far exceed the number of Protestants.
While all churches have their problems, the Catholic church is growing everywhere. Protestant churches are dying.
And then we get this:
Trump posted those back to back yesterday. There's been all sorts of rumors circulating that the administration has been upset with the Church.
No doubt it isn't a fan of the Church. The Church has God as its King. Maga has Donald as its.
Throughout Trump's presidency, the first legitimate one and the illegitimate second one, I've warned that support of Trump would likely kill off far right Evangelism in the US. I've also warned that those far right Evangelicals who support Trumpwould turn on Catholicism, which they don't understand and often don't even think to be a Christian religion, when in fact it's the original Christian religion. And I've failed to grasp how any thinking Catholic could really support Trump with any depth.
But some have. I know plenty.
Some are just shallow political thinkers, others not, and all are conservative. I'm conservative, but I've never supported Trump.
These people are opposed to abortion (so am I), and were horrified by transgenderism (so am I). That frankly is just about it. Some buy in to the other hardcore aspects of the far right as well, being opposed to immigration, for instance, which actually requires a more nuanced thought process than they are giving it. And the Democrats made it impossible for Catholics to really support them, becoming the party of death and weirdness.
None of which meant that anyone had to support a dim, narcissistic, serial polygamist.
For those of you who supported Trump on social issues, there were and are other parties. And how much do we know about Trump and any of the positions he supposedly supports. He own track record on moral issues is poor at least in so far as his treatment of women is concerned. And we're talking about adult women. This administration outright opposition to releasing the Epstein files certainly raises questions about it being willing to support child rapists, and there's enough smoke around Trump to at least raise questions about how far in the shallow end of the pool he may have been willing to go, although nothing's been proven. His family's financial dealings this term certainly raise questions of a moral nature. His launching of an illegal war and threatening mass civilian deaths is criminal.
We could go on. He's a horrible, demented, man. Christians who are supporting him need to rethink it immediately.
Catholics supporting him have helped bring us to this.
From here on out there's no excuse for a free pass by members of the Apostolic Faiths. None. And that includes the two members in the administration, Marco Rubio and J. D. Vance. Supporting Trump is supporting this mockery of the Faith and of all Christianity.
But for the voters too. In the midterms there are already candidates who note they are "endorsed by Donald Trump". One Catholic candidate here in the state hardcore embraces Trump and another runs, on all of her signs, "Endorsed by Donald Trump".
That needs to end right now.
The 25th Amendment needs to be applied, now. Catholics cozying up to Trump need to stop, now.
Last edition:
Downfall. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Thirteenth Edition. The MAGA Cannibal.
Monday, March 30, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Donald Trump. Flagellum Dei?
Lex Anteinternet: 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 ...
Graham is the son of the late Billy Graham, the famous Evangelical pastor beloved by many American Protestants. I never grasped his popularity, and perhaps things like this are why. What Graham posts here, and what has been widely misunderstood by those shocked by the comments, is in fact absurd. Graham espouses the minority Protestant view that you can never lose your salvation. Believe in Christ as your savior once, and you are good to go thereafter no matter what.
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.
This sort of view explains why so many people who attend mega churches live in such flagrant disregard for the basic tenants of Christianity, particularly the sexual tenants. And the belief, taken from and misinterpreted from one single line in the New Testament, is completely condemned by the whole of the Gospel. St. Paul, who specifically spoke of people losing their salvation after their conversions, would be appalled.
But for somebody as lazy intellectually as Trump, it's no doubt comforting, assuming he worried about the afterlife at all. He's lived a life of moral dissipation but, hey, he's okay.
The belief on Trump's part is no doubt not only comforting to him, but it probably emboldens him as well. Compared to Cyrus, backed up by the intellectually think "once saved" theology and pastors who repeatedly assure him he's on a Devine mission, and with people like Pete Hegseth in his cabinet, what could go wrong?
Well, everything, in fact. And indeed, everything is going wrong.
And therefore, we might legitimately raise this question. What if Trump's place in Salvation History is not that of Cyrus the Great, but rather Atilla the Hun?
It sounds absurd, but frankly its not less absurd that he being a Cyrus the Great, and certainly no less absurd than the claims he's a "Godly man" that some of his supporters make.
Attila the Hung, during his lifetime, was called the Flagellum Dei, the Scourge of God. The thought was that Rome having became so sinful was being served by being whipped by Atilla by license of God.
The modern US is certainly no less sinful that Rome was from 434 to 453, the reign of Atilla. The country still practices infanticide, something that only became legal anywhere in the US in 1970 (Hawaii). The country has the reputation of being deeply religious but the Playboy Culture that came in starting in 1953 has lead to rampant sexual immorality and indeed sexual confusion. The materialistic culture that started to come in during the 1950s has converted a class dominated culturally and economically by the middle class to one controlled by and for the extremely rich elite, the pinnacle of which was on display on Epstein Island. Closeted homosexuals in office pretend they hold family virtues. Office holders who maintain their deep love of family espouse divorce and contracept to avoid having one. Money is everything. We are willing to fight and die for oil rather than address the damage that it causes. We go so far as to excuse our lifestyles and occupations, no matter what they are, surely endorsed by God, effectively mocking him.
All along, we pretend we are a devout people.
Vice President Vance, who is a National Conservative, lectures the Europeans about their losing their culture while the American Civil Religion is such a washed out version of Christianity that it must shock the listeners. He has a point, to be sure, the West in general had engaged in massive moral decline with a life made easy after the recovery from World War Two. But it's hard the case that the United States can look ti itself as a champion of Western values.
Which leads back to this.
The Protestant Reformation brought in the modern world. It's dying before our eyes. The United States is a Protestant country, and the United States as a great power is over. It started to take blows when fallen away Methodist Hugh Hefner started to prostitute the image of young women in a particularly harmful way. As the culture became steeped in immorality, the mainline Protestant churches adopted it rather than offend. And off in the corners some Evangelical Churches took a more radical view, with those views now expressed in the MAGA movement.
Closely related, although not appreciated to be, a culture that fell into lust naturally fell into greed. No decent society, let alone a Christian one, would allow the wealthy the leeway they have in our society, nor would it seek to allow their unabated accumulation of wealth. Greed and lust are, in fact, the two primary attributes of American culture. The fact that we don't seem to realize that is because a third deadly sin has become manifestly American as well,. pride. To state that Trump is a prideful man, and that MAGA is prideful movement, is to state the blatantly obvious.
And while we are at it, we might note that envy has now uniquely entered the picture We evny what Denmark has in Greenland, and what Venezuela has it itself.
And look at Trump, and consider sloth. , ,
And finally, listen to Trump, on anything, and consider wrath.
These would be bad enough in one man, but when that man is elevated to the leader of a nation, that nation has endorsed it. We, as a nation, have adopted all seven of the deadly sins as our primary national virtues.
So why wouldn't we invite a scourging, if only by our own conduct.
Nobody knows whether Donald Trump is going to Hell after his death. That is not for us to know. Franklin Graham doesn't know. What we do know is that the Presbyterian raised Trump has lead a strongly immoral life in multiple ways even without examining the worst accusations against him, which in fact now deserve to be examined. But the same is true of many supposedly "devout" Christians. Indeed, the number of Christians attempting to be Christian, of all branches of the faith, is likely a tiny percentage of Christians in the U.S. overall.
What Trump is serving to do is to bring forward the hypocrisy of the American civil religion, the easy Christianity where the rules are made up and the points don't matter.
Sincere devout Protestant Christians have been deeply distressed by Trump. They should be. But there's another emotion in some quarters as well, a sort of principled schadenfreude. I.e., knowing that everything is collapsing and taking a sort of delight in it.
That may sound deeply odd, but perhaps it isn't as much as it might seem. The moral draft that's been going on has been going on for decades, and its been an obvious problem. The sort of worship of money that divests the middle class and which exalts economic activity above everything, including the happiness of average people and the environment, has been going on for decades as well. The profligate use of American armed force is not new. The hypocrisy of our ruling class, now at an all time high, has been developing for quite some time. Some times it takes a crisis for people to wake up. If they don't, they just perish and somebody less dense takes over.
Will Americans wake up?
I think they might, but when they wake up it's not going to be morning in America. That country has died. It was already ill, and had been very ill since the 2010s, but Trump came in like the batshit crazy anti vaxers that are part of his overall movement and administered a lethal does of ignorance and stupidity. The country they wake up to may, in fact, be more like an old one, hopefully. One less powerful on the international stage, and less willing to throw its weight around without the cooperation of others.
In other ways, it's going to be something entirely new. Far right Evangelical Protestantism will not survive Donald Trump. People like Franklin Graham and Paula White are going to be regarded as ignorant fools. The big box mega churches will be exposed for what they are, worship service centers think on the hard lessons of Christianity.
Faith won't die, and it hasn't anywhere. The Ancient Faith has started to revive in France, the Eldest Daughter of the Church. The Apostolic Faiths in North America are growing as the young turn their back on the American Civil Religion and Americanism in general, seeking the real. The Protestant Reformation was already dying, but now that death will accelerate, even if the Protestant faiths, particular those of the early Reformation, will live on, particularly in their most conservative, and frankly Catholic, forms.
Holy Week started yesterday. We live in interesting times.
Monday, March 16, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: The end of the American Century and planning for what comes next.
Lex Anteinternet: The end of the American Century and planning for w...: Donald Trump is systematically accelerating American decline making what might have happened over a two or more decades, had the existing tr...
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.
Sunday, February 8, 2026
The Rural Blog: Agriculture leaders warn of possible 'widespread c...
The Rural Blog: Agriculture leaders warn of possible 'widespread c...: Nearly half of all U.S. farms are not profitable. (Photo by Matthew Putney, DTN) A bipar...
Saturday, February 7, 2026
Lex Anteinternet: Trump gives US ranchers the shaft.
Lex Anteinternet: Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or les...: January 1, 2026. China is imposing a 55% tariff on some (it appears quite a bit of) beef from Brazil, Australia and the United States. In C...
I'm cross posting this due to Trump's giving ranchers, one are of agriculture where agrarians are hanging on, the shaft.
Subsidiarity Economics 2026. The Times more or less locally, Part 1. The reap what you sow edition.
January 1, 2026.
China is imposing a 55% tariff on some (it appears quite a bit of) beef from Brazil, Australia and the United States.
In Casper, Vintage Wine and Spirits and Wyoming Rib and Chop are closed as of this morning.
Donald Trump vetoed a water project in Colorado which was passed unanimously by Congress, and which is in a district that is represented by MAGA Lauren Boebert and which voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump mostly, it appears, as an act of revenge on Colorado.
The costs of at least 350 drugs in the U.S. are expected to rise in 2026.
Also, according to Trump Golf Tracker, Donald Trump has golfed 79 days out of 347 days since returning to office (22.8% of the presidency), at a taxpayer cost of $110,600,000.
The price of oil today is generally $57.41/bbl, below US profitability. Wyoming oil is generally at $57.84/bbl.
Coal rose to $107.50 /T on December 31, 2025, up 0.80% from the previous day. Over the past month, coal has fallen 0.78%, and is down 13.72% compared to the same time last year.
January 6, 2026
Venezuela takeover has Wyoming oil industry bracing for market changes: Though Wyoming politicos regard Trump's actions as necessary, oil executives do not anticipate immediate windfall.
There's no part of this that will be a positive for the U.S. economy, or Wyoming's. There's been too much oil on the market now for years, which has made Wyoming's petroleum economy unstable. More oil will simply make it worse, much worse. Sinking a bunch of infrastructure into a foreign country will make it worse.
This will be an economic problem, if not a disaster.
And here's another GOP bit of great economic news:
Wyoming spent $2.4M on hunger relief during shutdown emergency: Food insecurity is soaring in the state due to inflation and other factors, food relief experts say.
January 6, 2026
There's a lot of weird war related news circulating today.
Trump claims that the government of Venezuela is going to, well, here:
Trump, who is demented, is now threatening Greenland.
Trump needs to be removed via the 25th Amendment, and like yesterday.
January 8, 2026
Oh we clearly need to add Venezuelan oil to this scenario.
January 9, 2026
Allowing power usage on this scale is simply insane.
January 10, 2026
$350 Million Transmission Project Links Wyoming, South Dakota Power Grids
Broncos Playoff Mania Drives Tickets To More Than $17,000
January 13, 2026
One year in, Trump's economy is a mess
He may have won on a promise to fix everything, but he's only made it worse.
January 19, 2026
Дональд Трамп — агент России, will be imposing tariffs on NATO members over his avarice for Greenland.
Дональд Трамп — агент России.
January 20, 2026
The stock market is collapsing and Treasury bonds are being sold off by the Danish retirement system due to the instability of the American budget.
If this becomes a general trend over the next thirty days the U.S. will go into a recession and the Dollar will cease to be the global reserve currency.
All this sparked by the demented avarice of the dimwit in the Oval Office.
January 21, 2026
Trump added $2.25 trillion to the national debt in his first year back in (illegitimate) charge.
Laramie County approves construction of what could become the largest data center in US - WyoFile: Project Jade could eventually use the same amount of electricity as produced by 10 nuclear power plants.
January 26, 2026
Natrona County gas prices soar as Iran tensions, sanctions rock oil markets
January 27, 2026
Posted under fair use exception, there's no other good way to illustrate the dollar tanking like this.
Yeah, Trump sure is making us great again.
February 7, 2026
Trump screws American agriculture:
By the President of the United States of AmericaA Proclamation1. Cattle ranchers have played an integral role in United States history, helping to forge an American identity and an American diet with beef as a key staple food. Today, beef remains vital in the American diet, evidenced by the fact that the United States is the largest consumer of beef by volume, followed closely by China and Brazil. And the United States ranks second in per capita beef consumption globally.2. But in 2022, the United States faced a widespread and severe drought, affecting beef-producing States, such as Texas, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota, and Kansas. Texas and Kansas, for example, continue to face persistent drought conditions. The effects of drought are particularly pronounced for livestock producers as many of their operations rely on precipitation to grow forage crops to feed their herds.3. In addition to droughts, wildfires have affected the grasslands of the western United States, including America’s cattle-producing States. Apart from the direct threat of burns and burn-associated deaths to cattle, cattle ranchers have had to adapt to indirect effects of wildfires, including changes in grazing patterns, loss of feed supplies, and suboptimal animal health for those cattle surviving the wildfires.4. Given the demand for beef, certain United States cattle farmers and ranchers supplement their herds, specifically their feedlot stocks, with cattle (calves) imported from Mexican ranchers. But following new detections of the New World screwworm in Mexico in May 2025, the Department of Agriculture Animal Plant and Health Inspection Service, in conjunction with U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP), restricted the importation of live animal commodities from or transiting through Mexico, further limiting domestic feedlot stock supplies.5. These factors have combined to result in the United States cattle herd contracting to record lows. As of July 2025, the United States cattle inventory totaled 94.2 million head, including 28.7 million beef cows. This is one percent lower than the United States cattle inventory surveyed in July 2023, continuing the downward trend of cattle inventory in the United States.6. The abovementioned factors have also cumulatively resulted in higher beef prices for United States consumers, including for ground beef. Since January 2021, ground beef prices have continued to rise, reaching an average of $6.69 per pound in December 2025, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics — the highest since the Department of Labor started tracking beef prices in the 1980s.7. Despite the increased prices and the availability of more affordable protein alternatives, United States consumers’ demand for beef remains strong. The United States imported a record high amount of beef in 2024, reaching 4.64 billion pounds, a more than 24 percent increase in beef imports since 2023. Among the beef products the United States imports are lean trimmings, which are blended with fattier domestic trimmings to produce ground beef products, such as hamburgers.8. The Secretary of Agriculture has monitored the domestic supply of beef products subject to a tariff-rate quota (TRQ), including lean beef trimmings falling under Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States (HTSUS) statistical reporting numbers 0201.30.5085 and 0202.30.5085, and noted the domestic supply of such products and substitutable products combined with the estimated imports of such products under the United States beef import TRQ. The Secretary of Agriculture also advised on related domestic demand and pricing.9. As President of the United States, I have a responsibility to ensure that hard-working Americans can afford to feed themselves and their families. After considering the information provided to me by the Secretary of Agriculture, among other relevant information, I am taking action to temporarily increase the quantity of in-quota imports of lean beef trimmings under the United States beef TRQ to increase the supply of ground beef for United States consumers.10. Section 404 of the Uruguay Round Agreements Act (URAA) (Public Law 103-465, 108 Stat. 4809, 4959-61 (19 U.S.C. 3601)) authorizes the President, in certain circumstances, to modify TRQs on certain agricultural products. In particular, section 404(b) of the URAA (19 U.S.C. 3601(b)) provides that where imports of an agricultural product are subject to a TRQ, and where the President determines and proclaims that the supply of the same or directly competitive or substitutable agricultural product will be inadequate, because of a natural disaster, disease, or major national market disruption, to meet domestic demand at reasonable prices, the President may temporarily increase the quantity of imports of the agricultural product that is subject to the in-quota rate of duty established under the TRQ. And section 404(d)(3) of the URAA (19 U.S.C. 3601(d)(3)) provides that the President may allocate the in-quota quantity of a TRQ for any agricultural product among supplying countries or customs areas and may modify any allocation as determined appropriate by the President.11. After considering the information provided to me by the Secretary of Agriculture, among other relevant information, I find that imports of lean beef trimmings into the United States are currently subject to the United States TRQ for beef and determine that the supply of lean beef trimmings or directly competitive or substitutable agricultural products will be inadequate to meet domestic demand at reasonable prices because of a natural disaster and major national market disruption. Accordingly, I determine that it is necessary and appropriate to temporarily increase the quantity of imports of lean beef trimmings subject to the in-quota rate of duty established under the beef TRQ. In addition, I determine that it is appropriate to allocate all of the increased in-quota quantity of beef, as established by this proclamation, to Argentina.12. Section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended (19 U.S.C. 2483), authorizes the President to embody in the HTSUS the substance of statutes affecting import treatment, and actions thereunder, including the removal, modification, continuance, or imposition of any rate of duty or other import restriction.NOW, THEREFORE, I, DONALD J. TRUMP, President of the United States of America, by the authority vested in me by the Constitution and the laws of the United States, including section 404 of the URAA, section 604 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, and section 301 of title 3, United States Code, do hereby proclaim as follows:(1) For calendar year 2026, the aggregate in-quota quantity for certain products described in Additional U.S. Note 3 of Chapter 2 of the HTSUS will be increased by 80,000 metric tons (mt).(2) The additional 80,000 mt described in clause (1) of this proclamation will apply only to lean beef trimmings classifiable under HTSUS statistical reporting numbers 0201.30.5085 and 0202.30.5085.(3) The additional 80,000 mt described in clauses (1) and (2) of this proclamation will be administered on a first-come, first-served basis in four quarterly tranches. The first tranche of 20,000 mt will open on February 13, 2026, and close on March 31, 2026. The second tranche of 20,000 mt will open on April 1, 2026, and close on June 30, 2026. The third tranche of 20,000 mt will open on July 1, 2026, and close on September 30, 2026. The fourth tranche of 20,000 mt will open on October 1, 2026, and close on December 31, 2026.(4) The additional 80,000 mt described in clauses (1) and (2) of this proclamation is allocated in its entirety to Argentina.(5)(a) To establish the TRQ amendments described in this proclamation, the HTSUS is modified as set forth in the Annex to this proclamation.(b) The United States Trade Representative (Trade Representative), in consultation with CBP, shall determine whether any additional modifications to the HTSUS are necessary to effectuate this proclamation and shall make such modifications to the HTSUS through notice in the Federal Register, including any technical correction to the Annex to this proclamation.(6) The Secretary of Agriculture shall continue to monitor the domestic supply of lean beef trimmings, as the Secretary considers appropriate, and shall advise me on the domestic supply of lean beef trimmings or directly competitive or substitutable products, combined with the estimated imports of such products under the TRQ as adjusted by this proclamation, and how such availability relates to domestic demand at reasonable prices. The Secretary of Agriculture, in consultation with the Trade Representative, shall inform me of any circumstances that, in the Secretary’s opinion, might indicate the need for further action and shall recommend to me any additional action I should take, if necessary.(7) Each executive department and agency (agency) is authorized to and shall take all appropriate measures within its authority to implement this proclamation. The head of each agency may, consistent with applicable law, including section 301 of title 3, United States Code, redelegate any of these functions within their respective agency.(8) Any provision of previous proclamations and Executive Orders that is inconsistent with the actions taken in this proclamation is superseded to the extent of such inconsistency. If any provision of this proclamation or the application of any provision to any individual or circumstance is held to be invalid, the remainder of this proclamation and the application of its provisions to any other individuals or circumstances shall not be affected.IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand thissixth day of February, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fiftieth.DONALD J. TRUMP
Well that not only hurts Wyoming, it directly hurts me.
Well this will be fun at the next gathering "are you surprised that Trump. . . "
And something to remember:
Tom Lubnau: This Session, A Failed Budget Shuts Wyoming Down
Last edition:
Subsidiarity Economics 2025. The Times more or less locally, Part 13. Disassociation.
Labels: 119th Congress, 2020s, 2025, Chuck Gray, Coal, Economics, Government, Health Care, Petroleum, Populism, Republican Party, Taxes, Unions, Wyoming, Wyoming's boom and bust economy
First set of Labels: 2020s, 2026, Agriculture, Australia, Brazil, China, Donald Trump, Food, restaurants and bars, Taxes, The Second Trump Administration, United States, Wyoming, Wyoming (Casper)
Tuesday, February 3, 2026
What have you done for me lately? Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 5.
An agricultural country which consumes its own food is a finer thing than an industrial country, which at best can only consume its own smoke.
Chesterton.
A long time ago I started a post on one of our companion blogs about agriculturalist and the Republican Party. I can't find it now, maybe I published it, or maybe I didn't.
As I"m in both worlds, the urban and the agricultural, I get exposed to the political views of both camps. The Trump administration has made this a really interesting, and horrifying, experience. By and large professionals detest Donald Trump and regard him as a charleton Farmers and ranchers are, however, amongst his most loyal base, even though there's no real reason for them to be such. Indeed, with the damage that Trump is doing to agriculture this will be a real test of whether farmers and ranchers simply reflexively vote Republican or stop doing son and wake up.
The Democratic Party, not the GOP, saved family farmers and ranchers in this country when the forces of the unabated Homestead ACt and the Great Depression were going to destroy them. They've seemingly resented being saved from those forces, however, as an impingement on their freedoms, and they've bristled at every government act since that time. Farmers and ranchers would rather sink in a cesspool of their own making than be told how to properly build one, basically.
We here, of course, aren't a pure agricultural blog. This is an Agrarian blog, and that's different. We are, quite frankly, much more radical.
"The land belongs to those who work it."
Zapata.
Agrarianism is an ethical perspective that privileges an agriculturally oriented political economy. At its most concise, agrarianism is “the idea that agriculture and those whose occupation involves agriculture are especially important and valuable elements of society
Bradley M. Jones, American Agrarianism.
Still, we can't help but notice that American agriculturalist, more than any other class of businessmen, have voted to screw themselves by voting for Donald Trump. They voted for tariff wars that leave their products marooned here in the US while foreign competitors take advantage of that fact. They've voted for a guy who thinks global warming is a fib (which many of them do as well) in spite of the plain evidence before their eyes, and the fact that this will destroy the livelihoods of the younger ones. They've voted to force economic conditions that will force them off the lands and their lands into the hands of the wealthy.
Indeed, on that last item, they've voted for people who share nothing in common with them whatsoever and would just as soon see them out of business, or simply don't care what happens to them.
They've voted, frankly, stupidly.
Well, nothing cures stupidly more than a giant dope slap from life, and they're getting one right now. The question is whether they'll vote in 2026 and 2028 to be bent over, or start to ask some questions.
We're going to post those questions here.
1. What connection does the candidate have with agriculture?
They might not have any and still be a good candidate, but if they're running around in a plaid shirt pretending to be a 19th Century man of the soil, they should be dropped.
They should also be dropped if they're like Scott Bessent, who pretends to be a soybean farmer when he's actually a major league investor. Indeed, big money is the enemy of agriculture and always has been.
I'd also note that refugees from agriculture should be suspect. The law is full of them, people who were sent off to law school by their farmer and rancher parents who believed, and in their heart of hearts still believe, that lawyers, doctors and dentist, indeed everyone in town, don't really work. All of these refugees live sad lives, but some of them spend time in their sad lives on political crusades that are sort of a cry out to their parents "please love me".
I know that sounds radical, but it's true.
2. What will they do to keep agricultural lands in family hands, and out of absentee landlord hands?
And the answer better not be a "well I'm concerned about that". The answer needs to be real.
From an agrarian prospective, no solution that isn't a massive trend reversing one makes for a satisfactory answer to this question. Ranches being bought up by the extremely wealthy are destroying the ability of regular people to even dare to hope to be in agriculture. This can be reversed, and it should be, but simply being "concerned" won't do it.
3. What is your view on public lands?
If the answer involves transferring them out of public hand, it indicates a love of money that's ultimately always destructive to agriculture in the end.
Indeed, in agricultural camps there remains an unabated lust for the public lands even though transferring them into private hands, whether directly or as a brief stop over in state hands, would utterly destroy nearly ever farm and ranch in local and family ownership . The change in value of the operations would be unsustainable, and things would be sold rapidly.
Public lands need to stay in public hands.
4. How do you make your money?
People think nothing of asking farmers "how many acres do you have" or ranchers "how many cattle do you have", both of which is the same as asking "how much money do you have".
Knowing how politicians make their money is a critical thing to know. No farmer or rancher, for example, has anything in common with how the Trump family makes money, and there's no reason to suppose that they view land as anything other than to be forced into developers hands and sold.
5. What is your position on global warming?
If its any variety of "global warming is a fib", they don't deserve a vote.
6. What is your position on a land ethnic?
If they don't know what that means, they don't deserve a vote.
7. What's on your dinner table, and who prepares it?
That may sound really odd, and we don't mean for it to be a judgment on what people eat. . . sort of. But all agriculturalist are producing food for the table. . . for the most part, if we ignore crops like cotton, or other agricultural derived textiles, of which there are a bunch, and if we ignore products like ethanol.
Anyhow, I'll be frank. If a guy is touring cattle country and gives an uneasy chuckle and says, "well, I don't eat much meat anymore" do you suppose he really cares about ranching? If you do, you need your head checked.
You probably really need it checked if the candidate doesn't every grill their own steak but has some sort of professional prepare their dinner every night. That would mean that they really have very little chance of grasping
8. What's your understanding of local agriculture?
That's a pretty broad question, but I'm defining agriculture very broadly here. Indeed, what I mean is the candidates understanding of the local use of nature, to include farming and ranching, but to also include hunting, fishing and commercial fishing.
Indeed, on the latter, only the commercial fishing industry seems to have politicians that really truly care what happens to them. How that happened isn't clear, but it does seem to be the case.
Otherwise, what most politicians seem to think is that farmers wear plaid flannel shirts. I see lots of them wondering around in photographs looking at corrals, or oil platforms, but I never see one actually do any work. . . of pretty much any kind. That is, I don't expect to see Chuck Gray flaking a calf, for example.
Last and prior editions:
Claiming the mantle of Christ in politics. Don't support liars and don't lie. Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 4.
Claiming the mantle of Christ in politics. Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 3.
Questions hunters, fishermen, and public lands users need to ask political candidates. Addressing politicians in desperate times, part 2.
Labels: 2026 Election, 2028 Election, Commentary, Democratic Party, Politics, Questions for politicians, Republican Party, Trailing threadLabels: 2026 Election, 2028 Election, Camping, Climate Change, fishing, hunting, Politics, Public Lands, Questions for politicians, Right Wing Politics and Politicians, The Land Ethic, This is why we can't have nice things
Addressing politicians in desperate times. A series.
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