Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th Edition appendix. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes. So does Beyonce Knowles. And stuff.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th Edition appendix...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th Edition appendix. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes. So does Beyonce Knowles. And stuff.

The Sydney Sweeney jeans ad praising her genes is genius: How nice to have the Sydney Sweeney “great genes” controversy. It is happily of no consequence, which is . . . 

Froma Harrop.

The massive overreaction to Sweeney being in an American Eagle ad while being white continues on, and is nicely addressed by Froma Harrop above.  Harrop's article reminds us of a few other pretty women, which likely means that it's a good thing the article was written by a woman.

Coincidentally, Beyoncé Knowles ad campaign for Levis continues on as well.  It predates Sweeney's ad for American Eagle.  I don't know anything about American Eagle jeans at all, but I do about Levis as I wear them a lot.

Knowles is also hot.

From Knowles Levis commercial

Knowles, of course, is an African American.

Of interest in this, both Knowles and Sweeney manage to be hot while fully clothed, a good trend.

Sweeney from her American Eagle ad.

Also of note, they're both actually really curvy and not sticks.  In other words, they look like actual women, which is of course what they are.  Knowles is particularly notable as she's been regarded as hot all along, even though she doesn't fit into the traditional stick figure model category that modeling agencies have tended to use for years.  She's big.  

Of course, all this brought out the political clowns.  Robot from Texas, Sen. Ted Cruz (why hasn't ICE deported this foreign born interloper yet?) felt compelled to state that due to the Democrats  “beautiful women are no longer acceptable in our society.”  That's really absurd.  One of the things that Sen. Krysten Sinema, now an independent but up until recently a Democrat, basically took criticism for was being hot while in office.  Sinema, whose politics are eclectic, is clearly highly intelligent. She's also a fallen away Mormon who is "unaffiliated" in terms of religion, and a lesbian, all of which puts her in the infamia category for Republicans.

Republicans, it might be noted, really lashed on to Sweeney when they found out she's a registered Republican, which means almost nothing.  Most of the MAGA politicos would have been regarded as fringe Republicans at best up until King Donny.  Real Republicans, as Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray likes to point out, are now regarded as Democratic infiltrators by the current GOP, which is lead by a lifelong former Democrat, Trump.  We really don't know about her actual political views at all.

She registers in Florida, and of course she might register Republican for the same reason that horrifies Chuck Gray in Wyoming, it might for the most part be the only place to register. The Unconstitutional Primary Election in Wyoming tends to be the real election, so that's where people register.  Maybe that's why Sweeney registers that way in Florida. Who knows?

Republicans, starting with Trump, have really latched on to her already, which is a metaphor that should make Sweeney uncomfortable.  Some real boofador from Fox News even went so far as to suggest that seeing Sweeney in jeans might remind American men of their demographic obligation to procreate, whic his extremely weird, and referenced Dylan Mulvaney as an example of what might be deterring them. While Mulvaney is genuinely bizarre, and transgenderism not a real thing, that's probably not what's keeping the WASPs home alone in their basements rather than going out and meeting someone.

Somebody in this category, who is going out, as in out of the state, is Artemis Langford, who, having graduated from university, is packing up and leaving, claiming the state doesn't want people like him here.  Langford, who deserves real pity, demonstrated self pity in the interview, as he had to have known that being a big overweight man in a sorority would draw attention, although he no doubt didn't expect all the litigation that ensued.  The basic gist of his complaint is that he doesn't like it that there have been laws passed to protect actual women from being displaced in women's sports and the like, and he doesn't like it that society has moved towards recognizing "transgenderism" for what it is, a mental illness, so he's leaving.  At least as of two years ago, his intended career path was law school.  Being a man presenting as a woman wouldn' t stop a person from practicing law here, although it probably would be limiting, so pursuing that career elsewhere probably would be a good idea, if that's his actual intent.

All of this gets into the topic of conservatism, cultural conservatism, culture, and populism, but we'll try to take that up somewhere else.  Maybe in our 100th Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist edition.

Anyhow, one denim glad guy saw an opportunity here, and took it:

Wyoming Outdoorsman Spoofs Controversial Sydney Sweeney Jeans Ads

He does like the Sweeney ad.  I'll bet he likes the Knowles one too.

And all this comes up, sort of, due to denim, something that women didn't often appear in, and for that matter decently dressed men, until after World War Two.  While women wearing jeans had taken off well before that, Levis didn't introduce 501s for women until 1981.

Related threads:

Levis

Labels: 1870s, 1873, 1890, 1890s, 1940s, 1947, 1950s, 1960s, Agriculture, Clothing, Growing up in the 1970s, It was because of World War Two, Standards, technology, trends, World War Two

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes.

Labels: 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, 2020s, Advertising, Clothing, Conservatism, Culture, Ethnicities, Evolutionary Biology, flap de jour, Liberalism, nature, Patrick Dineen, Pronatalism, Sydney Sweeney, Women, Zeitgeist

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. Sydney ...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 99th edition. Sydney Sweeney has great jeans, and genes.

Sydney Sweeney in American Eagle denim, part of the ad campaign causing all the furor.  The outfit itself is very 1970s retro, which is more than a little ironic in context.  Given the commentary, this is posted with the fair use exception.

Genes are passed down from parents to offspring, often determining traits like hair color, personality and even eye color. My jeans are blue.

Sydney Sweeney in American Eagle ad.

Sydney Sweeney's American Eagle ad shows a cultural shift toward whiteness.

CNBC headline.

Q: Your administration has been very open about the fact that American women are not having enough babies. There was an ad this week. Sydney Sweeney, an actress, was in an ad for Blue Jeans. Does America need to see more ads like that? And maybe fewer ads with people like Dylan Mulvaney on the cover?

Rob Finnerty in an interview of Donald Trump.

First, let us state something plainly.

Sydney Sweeney is hot.

Way hot.

And she looks good in the American Eagle Jeans, which are sort of retro 1970s denim really.  

Really good.

So why are people having a fit?

Well, it's a really interesting tour through the culture, really.

Using attractive women to sell clothing is nothing new.  Shoot, using attractive women to sell anything, is in fact not new.  

So what's the big deal.

Basically, when you get right down to it, the big deal is two things.  First of all, Sweeney is white.  Secondly, this is a return to an obvious sex sells approach to selling that we haven't seen since the early 1990s.

The peak of the sex sells approach was really the 1970s.  Coincident with the rise of feminism was the absolute exploitation of women in advertising.  Calvin Klein really went to town with Brooke Shields, who was sexualized so young in her career that her image, in the movie industry, was basically a near example of child pornography.  But in advertising, he wasn't the only one.  There were in fact advertisements that would outright shock most Americans now as they used young teenage girls in sexualized poses.  It was repulsive. 

That seemed to have run its course by the mid 1980s, but even then, in the 1990s, Playboy model Anna Nicole Smith modeled jeans, in her case Guess jeans.  

The 90s, however, also saw the really fruity elements of the American come into cultural power, and a lot of that gave us, unfortunately, what we have today in terms of a massive right wing populist reaction.  In modeling, left wing media masters insisted that models not be, if possible, smoking hot young women and that instead they should be culturally diverse, and in some cases, fat.

Now comes this, in the midst of a real swing to cultural conservatism, but not culturalism of the Patrick Dineen type, but of the Dukes of Hazzard fan type.

What Sweeney said, quite frankly, is actually completely true. Genes are passed down from parents to offspring.  Genes in fact determine external traits like hair color and eye color.  That is a fact.

And, more than we like to admit, they determine a massive amount of our personality traits.  If you hang around a family gathering and don't find people who have the same deep interests as you do, the same sense of humor, etc., you might wish to check to see if you are in the right place. Sure, some of that might be due to environment, you are all from the same family, but some not.  It's well known that many of the traits that impact our personalities are in fact genetic.

So what's up with the upset.

Well she's white, as are 60.5% of the American population.  That is who you are trying to sell to much of the time. The liberal left just can't have that.

If the same clothing promotion was being done by Anok Yai, the left wouldn't be having a fit, the right would be, and for the exact same reason.

Which is exactly why, if I ran American Eagle, I'd have Anok Yai join in the campaign.

Of course, that isn't the only reason people are enjoying being upset.  They're also upset as the ads openly focus on Sweeney's assets, including having the camera in the jean jacket ad focus on her boobs until she intervenes to instruct the viewer to look at her face.

Well, gentle reader, that portrays reality.  All the feminist reactions in the world are never going to stop men from observing cleavage when its right there.  We're wired that way, and for a reason.

Which brings us to the next point.  In the right wing defense, Trump, in a friendly Fox interview, was asked the bizarre question "Does America need to see more ads like that? And maybe fewer ads with people like Dylan Mulvaney on the cover?" after the pronatalist views of the far right were referenced.

That was weird.  

The US, and for that matter the entire Western World, does not have a demographic crisis like the far right pronatalist like to imagine.  But the suggestion that men are going to look at Sydney Sweeney and suddenly feel aroused and go out and procreate is truly odd.

But even this does give us a glimpse into how modern Western society has really gone off the rails  No man who wants to "transition" is ever going to look like Sydney Sweeney.  Nor will any of them suffer from the Girl Flu every month.  That's reality.

Anyhow.  Givc the woman a break.

Last edition:

The Madness of King Donald. The 25th Amendment Watch List, Third Edition and Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 98th edition. The Perverts and Fellow Travelers Issue.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 96th edition. The Epstein Files.

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 96th edition. The Eps...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 96th edition. The Epstein Files.

“In brief, my lord, we both descried

(For then I stood by Henry’s side)

The Palmer mount, and outwards ride,

Upon the earl’s own favourite steed:

All sheathed he was in armour bright,

And much resembled that same knight,

Subdued by you in Cotswold fight:

Lord Angus wished him speed.”

The instant that Fitz-Eustace spoke,

A sudden light on Marmion broke:

“Ah! dastard fool, to reason lost!”

He muttered; “’Twas nor fay nor ghost

I met upon the moonlight wold,

But living man of earthly mould.

O dotage blind and gross!

Had I but fought as wont, one thrust

Had laid De Wilton in the dust,

My path no more to cross.

How stand we now?—he told his tale

To Douglas; and with some avail;

’Twas therefore gloomed his ruggéd brow.

Will Surrey dare to entertain,

’Gainst Marmion, charge disproved and vain?

Small risk of that, I trow.

Yet Clare’s sharp questions must I shun;

Must separate Constance from the nun—

Oh, what a tangled web we weave,

When first we practise to deceive!

A Palmer too!—no wonder why

I felt rebuked beneath his eye:

I might have known there was but one

Whose look could quell Lord Marmion.”

Marmion, Sir Walter Scott.

The reason that late procurer Jeffrey Epstein remains in the news is that the Republicans made the "Epstein files" a big deal.

That's the only reason.

I don't believe that Trump had Epstein murdered.  I don't believe the really bizarre conspiracy theory that the Clintons did either.  Even at the time that was asserted, however, I thought that it made a lot more sense that Trump would have offed Epstein than the Clintons, but I don't believe that either happened.  

Epstein and Trump knew each other, and that association (I don't know if Trump has any actual friends at all, I somewhat doubt it) was more than casual.  Epstein claimed to know that Trump liked to screw the wives of Trump's "friends" and that he first had carnal knowledge of Melania aboard the Lolita Express.  At least based on what is out there, Epstein never claimed that Trump dabbled with the underaged.  Trump did claim that Epstein like women "on the younger side", which can mean a variety of things.  Author Michael Wolff  claimed that Epstein claimed he had photos of Trump with topless "young women" sitting on his lap, which again doesn't mean they were underaged.

There have been, however, some accusations, and that's what they are, accusations, that went beyond that.  "Katie Johnson" claimed that she was raped by Trump in association with Epstein.  Was she?  How would we know, the suits were never advanced, and the allegations are so extreme that there's plenty of reason to question them.

And other women claimed they were abused by Trump, while teenagers, on Epstein's island.

But still, all of this may just prove what we already know.  Trump can be proven to be a creep, but that doesn't mean he's a pedophile, if the women's claims are disregarded (which generally, we tend not to do with accusatrices).

Having said that, there's the smoke and fire matter.  People related rumors about the Hefner mansion for years before the full truth of its horrors were told after his death.  Hefner was a rapist, under the current definition, based on what one of his female house guests related to have witnesses in terms of compelled sex.  James Brown was violent towards women there.  Bill Cosby, who turned out to be a rapist, frequented it.

Can you really have an island dedicated to sexual trafficking and not descend into rape?  Can you really circluate underaged girls and not have them compelled into sex? 

During Biden's administration, the populist far right, which got ahead of Trump in its conspiracy theories, whipped itself into a frenzy with the belief that Democrats were a secret cabal of pedophiles, and that the Epstein Files would reveal a vast number of important Democrats who were involved .  As soon as the files were released, we were told, the lid was going to be off this horrific discovery.  Trumpite figures adopted releasing the Epstein files as one of the things they were going to do.

After the election, Pam Bondi did in fact release part of the FBI files on Epstein, which is seemingly now forgotten even by Bondi.  She claimed she had an Epstein client list on her desk that she was reviewing, with the information set to be released.

Now the list is lost, or maybe never existed.

Hmmm. . . 

Well, if a list existed, it's being hidden, and given the way the Trumpites approached this, there's real reason to wonder why.  They cried for the information, it didn't get released if there was a list, and it should be.  Is it lost?

If it is, how did that happen?

We're also told a list never existed, and it might not have.  That would have been smart for Epstein, and Epstein was no dummy.  How much of a list would he have needed?

Well, maybe some sort of list.  Knowing the high rollers being supplied with teenage girls would, I suppose, perhaps be easy enough, but you'd think you'd write this stuff down for self protection if nothing else.

All of which fuels more conspiracy theories.

Chances are there was no client list.  Epstein probably packed a list of perverts around in his head.  Probably most of the girls he supplied were young, but not underaged, probably. 

But now, we'll never really know.

What we do know is that somebody was lying.  Bondi, for example, either had a list and "lost" it, or she never had one.  Others who suggested there was all sorts of smoking gun material that would come to light, if they didn't lie, were in the neighborhood of lies.

But then, Trump has lied so often that people have become numb to it.

Gary Hart had to drop out of the 1988 Presidential election when an affair he engaged in, involving a boat called Monkey Business, came to light.

My, how our standards have fallen.

Last edition.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 95th edition. Making us a more barbaric society.

Labels: Barbarians, Crime, Immigration, mehr Mensch sein, Modernity Is Barbarism, Sudan, The Second Trump Administration, Zeitgeist

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 89th Edition. Sidewalks and Swastikas

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 89th Edition. Sidewa...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 89th Edition. Sidewalks and flags.

An interesting episode in Evansville:

‘This is awesome’: Casper organizes to cover up swastika display in Evansville

And an episode all played out against the background of the state's GOP going increasingly to the very far right.

I'll note that this is "Pride Month".  As I've noted before, I don't really get pride month for a bunch of reasons, one simple one being I don't see how a person can be "proud" of their sexual drive.  That just seems odd to me.  My views on the topic are found in the related thread links below, and a person can read them if they're interested.

I'm also kind of in the camp of the months just being the months, although I do see why Black History Month and Women's History Month got started to focus attention.

Anyhow, over time, Prime Month, which originally was limited to homosexuality, expanded out to LGBTQ, and that's another topic.  L G & Q are related topics, but T is really a seperate one entirely, a fact that has caused some Ls to be upset by being included with Ts, and understandably so.

Anyhow, that's the topic of the post.

As noted, this is Pride Month and the Mayor of Evansville, on her own volition, put out small rainbow flags at the Evansville Town Hall.  She noted that it represented a municipal spirit of acceptedness, although it was not a municipal act. It was a private one.

This shows something really interesting in general.  For native Wyomingites, the view towards LGBTQ topics long was "I don't care what you do, just leave me alone".  That's the native Wyoming view on a lot of things.

For this reason, for decades, locals in this community would find themselves in the grocery store line with a man wearing a tutu (I'm sincere on this), and think, "um. . .whatever".  Or in my case, "um. . . poor taste in dresses".

The current right wing populist view, however, is very much "I care exactly what you are doing and I'm going to force you to stop doing it".

For locals, therefore, this entire topic has been a bit odd.  There's been the movement towards "you must accept", which is generally met with "What?  I wasn't bothering you" while also being met with "you must stop them", which has been met with "Why?  They weren't bothering me".

Anyhow, the mayor put out flags.

This was, in turn, met with the actions of one Evansville resident who went out and drew swastikas on the sidewalk in protest.  In addition, he threatened to purchase German swastika flags and put them out.

Why swastikas?

Well, nobody can really figure that one out.  Asked about it in a town work session, he replied:

Yeah, there’s a difference. I’m not that stupid, but what I’m doing here is to make a point.

And what is that point?

Hard to figure.

Anyhow, Evansville residents reacted by having a sidewalk chalk fest.  Seems about the best possible reaction, really.

A lesson here is that street level Wyoming isn't nearly as far right as GOP.  At some point, that probably begins to have an effect.

Another lesson may very well be that the center needle on this has moved on, giving us an example of Yeoman's Twenty First Law of Behavior for the second time in two days.  If that's the case, social conservatives will have a pretty hard time actually moving things back to where they want, as that requires a cultural change, and that change may have already taken place in the opposite direction.

Somewhat related, Wyoming's lone Congressman is backing a bill in Congress to change Pride Month (and I don't know how it ended up being called that) to "Family Month".  A Hageman Facebook post stated:

This June, I am proud to cosponsor Rep. Mary Miller's resolution to officially declare June as Family Month.

It is time to reject radical ideologies and honor traditional family values that have shaped our country for generations.

A press release said something similar. 

Some Facebook wag  posted in reply:

Where's your Hageman family picture?

Whoever posted that was probably well aware that Ms. Hageman goes by her maiden name, under which her legal career was established prior to her marriage, and not the last name of her husband.  More significantly, she has no children.

I've always wondered if somebody would start to take notice of this.  As a far right Republican, Hageman ran on family values but, with no children of her own, made reference to her nephews and nieces, which aren't ballpark close to you own children.

Now, women don't have children for a lot of reasons.  Some can't, for various biological reasons.  Sometimes their spouse is sterile, either due to biological reasons or surgical mutilation.  Lots of times, however, children were simply avoided, a species of tragedy, frankly, for those who have had children and grasp how they complete your lives, and make you into a real adult.

In polite society, you don't ask, however.

But American polite society is nearly a t hing of the past anymore, and here maybe there's a point to raising it.  Amongst the things the far right of the GOP has embraced is pronatalism.  

Pronatalism is a philosophy that is based on the concept that (married) couples ought to have a lot of children.  Frankly the general thesis of it is that "our" culture is dying and we need to combat it by having children.  The concept has actually been around for a very long time and is sometimes associated with the phrase "the battle of the cradle" and the concept of "race suicide".  No less of President than Theodore Roosevelt advocated the idea, stating that a man or woman who was childless by choice "merits contempt."

Which is I guess why the question is fair game in regard to the Congresswoman.  I'm not suggesting that she has avoided children by choice (I don't know), and even if she had, I wouldn't suggest that, therefore causes her to "merit contempt"  However, ff you raise the topic, well then. . . questions can logically follow.

The current GOP has become so focused on this that its floated the idea of a baby bonus, something that hasn't been paid in a Western nation for years and which has never been done in the U.S.  The proposal was to pay parents of newborns $1,000, which is just about the cost of one week of Huggies.  It's a stupid idea.

From the perspective of Catholics, however, this is a lot of fish on Fridays' during Lent.  You find people adopting something sort of generally associated with you, in this case children in marriage, but for oddball secular reasons, and as if the concept is brand new.  Catholics don't have children in marriage as a part of a race war.  Indeed, Catholics don't really recognize the validity of the concept of "race" at all, which is pretty plain if you go to a Mass in any metropolitan area of more than 10,000 people.  By the same token, we don't eat fish on Fridays during Lent (or in many cases, the rest of the year) as we've adopted the Mediterranean Diet or something.  

This does bring up this, however.  If you want a lot more children, you could take on the topic of pharmaceutical birth control.

Oh my.

Indeed, nothing would be more likely to rocket the population back to a more traditional set of relationships between men and women than that.

There's been some fears, I might note, that the current set of populists would do just that.  It's quite clear that some in the National Conservative/Christian Nationalist camp, would do that if they could.  

Anyhow, sidewalk chalk over the top of swastikas was a good end to an odd story.

Related threads:

On Pride Month, the nature of Pride, and compelling opinions.

Lex Anteinternet: Pride and Unintended Consequences and the really unknowable views of Donald Trump.

Pride and Unintended Consequences.

We like everything to be all natural. . . . except for us.

Last edition:

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 88th Edition. A predictive issue and other ramblings. Order coming on women in combat roles. Trump's bolt shot.

Labels: Christian Nationalism, Military, National Conservatism, Pete Hegseth, Predictions, The Madness of King Donald, The relationship between men and women, The roles of men and women, transgenderism, You heard it here first, Pete Hegseth,2026 Election, 2028 Election, Christianity, Education, Evolutionary Biology, Kent State Incident, Mormon, Populism, Protestant, religion, Synchronicity, trends, University of Wyoming, Yeoman's twenty-first law of behavior

Lex Anteinternet: NO KINGS

Lex Anteinternet: NO KINGS: 

NO KINGS

This is the 250th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.

A big cause of the American Revolution, as everyone knows, was Parliament's (not the King's) imposition of taxes on the colonies, which was done to help pay for the French and Indian (Seven Years) War.  They were, in modern parlance, value added taxes, which the colonist had no say in, and they were specifically directed, on tea.

"No taxation without representation" was the cry.

When, the following year, the Continental Congress got around to declaring independence the following year, they listed twenty five grievances they accused King George III of, those being:

• Grievance 1 "He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good."

I think this charge can be levied against King Donald, but it is complicated by the fact that Congress is pretty much completely dysfunctional and has been for some time.

• Grievance 2 "He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them." 
• Grievance 3 "He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only." 
• Grievance 4 "He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, and also uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their Public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures." 
• Grievance 5 "He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people." 
• Grievance 6 "He has refused for a long time, after such Dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative Powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining, in the meantime, exposed to all the Dangers of Invasion from without, and convulsions within."
• Grievance 7 "He has endeavored to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands." 

The Trump administration's outright hostility to the foreign born is at a level not seen since the 19th Century, and which exceeds any level in any prior administration in the country's history.  Included in this is an assault on birth right citizenship, which is featured in the Constitution.

• Grievance 8 "He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers."
• Grievance 9 "He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries."

Trump's attacks on the judiciary are certainly evidence of this.  Right now, the Administration is ignoring an order to return a wrongfully deported prisoner.

• Grievance 10 "He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance."

DOGE.

• Grievance 11 "He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures." 

Just last week came the news that the Trump administration has basically martialized the public lands along the Mexican border.

• Grievance 12 "He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power." 

See above and the use of the military for what the Border Patrol should properly be doing.

• Grievance 13 "He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:"
• Grievance 14 "For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us.

Again, see above.

• Grievance 15 "For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:"
• Grievance 16 "For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world".

Tariffs are accomplishing this.

• Grievance 17 "For imposing taxes on us without our consent:"

Tariffs again.

• Grievance 18 "For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Jury trial:
• Grievance 19 "For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offenses:"

El Salvador prisons and Laotian deportation?

• Grievance 20 "For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighboring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries to render it at once an example and fit instrument 

This was directed at Quebec, but it could now pretty ably describe what Trump is doing in general.

• Grievance 21 "For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:"

Again, see it above.

King Donald is repeating many of those same offenses, albeit in new forms, those being the ones emboldened.  Explanations, for the doubters, are provided above, but like British conservatives in the 1770s, they will not be able to see their own violations.

Perhaps nearly as distressing is a new development that I'm seeing in some Conservative quarters.

New York Times conservative columnists David Brooks called just recently for a "National Civil Uprising".

That's essentially a call for a massive act of civil disobedience, and frankly I think it has a good chance of happening.

And some are hinting at even more than that.

For decades, the Wayne LaPierre National Rifle Association fueled  the belief in the firearms community that the Second Amendment exists in order to allow civilians to fight Federal tyranny, if it came to that. That's really completely incorrect, as the text of the amendment clearly demonstrates:

A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

Posted on Twitter with the words "It won’t be long until the proletariat remembers why we have the second amendment".  This is suddenly a place where some on the left and some on the right are frighteningly meeting.

The founders of the Republic didn't want to keep a large standing Army, which they regarded, rightly, as a threat to democracy.  The early land defense of the country, therefore, relied on state militias, which had the added ability to take on local problems without the necessity of a Federal army having to intervene.  After all, keep in mind that one of the cited reasons for the Revolution is that the English had kept large bodies of armed troops in the colonies.  

Posted on Blue Sky with "The 2nd Amendment exists for a reason. It was put in place to protect us against tyranny, even from our own elected officials. We have the right to stand up."

Standing armies are always a problem and the current era might very well be starting to demonstrate that.  Throughout the nation's history it usually didn't have large armies save in times of war, or leading up to war.  But since the onset of the Cold War it has.  Even now, in the post Cold War era, the Army is enormous compared to what it had been before World War Two.

Anyhow, the Second Amendment doesn't exist so that average people can take on a tyrannical government.  It exists so that states can take on the British, basically.  That hasn't stopped at least three decades of firearms owners being schooled in the thought that they might have take up arms against the government, with those claims uniformly coming from the right, although in the 1960s, there were those on the left who argued with some justification that oppressed minorities should arm to protect themselves.

Malcom X, who was a big proponent of the Second Amendment, looking out a window while holding a M1 Carbine.

Now, all of a sudden, I'm seeing anti Trump Conservatives suggest that the Second Amendment's  clauses have what I've already noted as a mistaken view.  That shows, I think, how far down the road of chaos we've gotten. We haven't seen anything like that since the Civil War.

Moreover, there's some discussion going on in the military right now over what the duties are of military officers if they are ordered to take an illegal action.  To some extent I think you can argue they already have been, with the Trump administration declaring the public lands along the Mexican border to be military reservations, but that actually has a long history.  At any rate, Angry Staff Officer, whose blog we link in here, has put up two items recently on the military duties to disobey illegal orders.  The Space Force has had one commanding officer relieved for criticizing J. D. Vance's territorially aggressive statements, something I'm sure she knew would occur when she made them.  While we'd have to see what would actually happen, I suspect there's a lot of back barracks discussions going on amongst officers about the point at which they refuse to obey an illegal order from Trump.

Anticipating the worst, from Twitter.

Trump is a disaster, bringing the worse instincts in people to the top, and excusing them. This will get worse, and worse, if the 25th Amendment doesn't come into play. The man is an stupid, ancient, narcissist who may very well be bordering on insane. If Congress acted now, and truth be known a near majority likely grasp it and are too chicken to do anything, the situation could be salvaged.

Lex Anteinternet: World Happiness Report 2025

Lex Anteinternet: World Happiness Report 2025:  

World Happiness Report 2025

 

Read it and weep MAGA.  Mexico is a happier country than the dumpster fire the US has become, and the anger and discontent of a delusional populist far right has a lot to do with that, imho.

The US makes the top 25, sort of:

From Happier Lives Institute.

World Happiness Report 2025

Read the Report

• Chapter 1Executive Summary
• Chapter 2Caring and sharing: Global analysis of happiness and kindness
• Chapter 3Sharing meals with others: How sharing meals supports happiness and social connections
• Chapter 4Living with others: How household size and family bonds relate to happiness
• Chapter 5Connecting with others: How social connections improve the happiness of young adults
• Chapter 6Supporting others: How prosocial behaviour reduces deaths of despair
• Chapter 7Trusting others: How unhappiness and social distrust explain populism
• Chapter 8Giving to others: How to convert your money into greater happiness for others

Oh, you'll note we're behind Canada.  Maybe we should ask Canada to become a province.

There's a lot of things that go into this, we'll note, but right now there's no sign that we're becoming a happy country, let alone a "great" one, "again".

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 70th Edition. But fo...

Lex Anteinternet: Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 70th Edition. But fo...: 

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist. 70th Edition. But for Wales, Welcome to Appalachia and pointless Presidential Sedevacantism musing.

Today Congress will certify the results of the 2024 election.  Unlike last time, as Trump agrees with the results this time, it'll go smoothly and with little drama.

It's a good time for this post.

The good, the bad, and the ugly.

Governor Freundenthal laying down the law.

We ran a couple of items on historic Wyoming inaugurations yesterday, one for Ed Herschler and the other for Nellie Tayloe Ross

Sunday, January 5, 1975. Ed Herschler inaugurated.

January 5, 1925. Nellie Tayloe Ross sworn in as Governor.

Both were Democrats.

I remember Herschler, who is regarded even today as Wyoming's most popular Governor.  That caused me to think and realize that during my lifetime, the Governor's office in Cheyenne has bee occupied by Democrats over half the time, and I'm 61 years old. Those Governors were:

Gov. Matthew Mead  2011 - 2019  Republican

Gov. Dave Freudenthal 2003 - 2011 Democratic

Gov. Jim Geringer 1995 - 2003 Republican

Gov. Michael J. Sullivan 1987 - 1995 Democratic

Gov. Edward Herschler 1975 - 1987 Democratic

Gov. Stanley K. Hathaway 1967 - 1975 Republican

Gov. Clifford P. Hansen 1963 - 1967 Republican

Of those men, and they've all been men, in my view Hathaway was the best.  He brought in the severance tax over the panic crying and whining of the legislature at the time.  

He wouldn't be successful doing that now

Herschler was likely the second best.

There hasn't been a bad one save for Geringer, who I was not impressed with at the time, and I'm still not.

Freudenthal was our last Democratic Governor.  I'm quite confident that there isn't a Democrat in the state who could win that office today.  The Democratic Party here is darned near dead.

Freudenthal was always blunt and gruff.  He had been a U.S. Attorney and in his speech he sort of reminds me of a more erudite variant of a Clint Eastwood character.  For that matter, at least prior to being Governor, he packed a .44 Mag around, concealed.  It was named "Due Process".

The Republican part is struggling.  It's been taken over by Populists, who really aren't Republicans.

I noted the Populist "Five and Dime" program here the other day.  It turns out that Freudenthal now writes a newsletter in Wyoming for the AARP.  I'm not a member of the AARP as I'm not retired, so I didn't read it.  But I've read about it, and he notes that the nickel and dime program's tax programs will gut municipal resources.  

It simply will.

I wonder if the Wyoming Freedom Caucus doesn't realize that, or if they just don't care.  My guess is that its a combination of both.

Property taxes in Wyoming are pretty much where money for police, firemen, roads, and everything, come from.  It's where the money for education comes from too.  I don't think the WFC folks care much about education, and I'm not too certain, given that so many of them are imports, they don't care about the rest of that either.  They probably don't really go out in their towns and counties much, and are happy in their newly built house which is driving up property values. They just don't want to be taxed.

A lot of services in this state, and education, are first rate, but everything is pretty lean.  This will change the state, and for the worse.  

Welcome to Appalachia.

But for Wales.

From Senator Barrasso's Facebook page, on July 28, 2020.  Along with the photograph, was this post: "I would like to wish a very Happy Birthday to Representative Liz Cheney. It is a privilege to represent and serve the people of Wyoming with you."

For Wales? Why Richard, it profit a man nothing to give his soul for the whole world. . . but for Wales!

A Man for All Seasons.

President Biden indicated the other day he was giving former Wyoming Congressman Liz Cheney the second highest award that a civilian can be given.

Our Senator, John Barrasso, has condemned this, stating:

President Biden was either going to pardon Liz Cheney or give her an award. She doesn’t deserve either. She represents partisanship and divisiveness — not Wyoming.

Barrasso is the Senate Whip right now, and in Donald Trump's GOP, now that McConnell has stepped aside as the leader of the Senate Republicans, that means the Whip does Trump's bidding.

Barrasso is probably right that Congressman Cheney no longer represents Wyoming's view.  We don't really know what his views are, as they've sort of blown with the wind as he started to sense he was in political trouble going into the primary. There was no doubt what so ever that his main opponent was definitely a Trumpite and far to the right.  If anything, Barrasso moved to the right of that candidate.

But I'll confess that I don't understand many of our current politicians, or certainly our Republican ones.  I've met some in one way or another. At least Barrasso would never have said what he did about Cheney prior to Trump.

I don't believe that he believes, really, what he said.

I don't understand wanting an elected position so badly that you'll compromise yourself and say what you don't believe.  I particularly don't grasp it in the case of a man who is 72 years old and who could, and really should, retire.

Is being whip that intoxicating?

It must be.

And how odd that at the same time that Barrasso is condemning somebody that he once got along with, he's praising, along with Cynthia Lummis, the late President Carter as “the personification of the American dream,” 

That statement, I'd note, comes along with the usual crap that Carter rose from humble yeoman peanut farmer to the Oval Office.  Carter, as we've already noted, was a Naval Academy trained nuclear engineer who had served in the Navy's submarine service.  To have done that means he was a genius.

He was also deeply Christian and wouldn't compromise his views for anything.

Rep. Harriet Hageman, R-Wyo., stated, on Twitter:

President Jimmy Carter worked tirelessly for the country he loved, and we owe him a debt of gratitude for his service.

How can we owe Carter a debt of gratitude, which I agree we do, and not owe the same to former President Obama, or former President Biden? 

A Catholic saint who had been a lawyer (I've forgotten his name) declared to a friend before entering the Priesthood that he was leaving the law as it was too easy to lose your soul in the profession.  How much more true must that be for politicians, for reasons that I can hardly grasp.  

Entering a season of danger.

I fear that we're entering what will prove to be a very destructive and dangerous era.  

We shouldn't be surprised.

Politics is always full of extreme claims, but starting with the Obama Presidency, they began to enter the Bat Shit Crazy region, and not through Obama or the "establishment" Democrats.  The reaction to Obama was in some quarters very extreme.

Trump picked up on that and has incorporated it into his schtick.  A salesman by trade who formerly hung out with the rich and shallow, he realized that a disgruntled body of Americans were ready to listen to him, no matter what he said.

Since his defeat in 2019, he's yielded to really crazy and hateful statements.  People hate the comparison, but he's used the same demonization tactic that Hitler did.  Your problems are caused by somebody else, and that person is evil.  By January 6, 2020, a substantial body of the public had come to believe that.

That event was sort of our Reichstag moment, and things are going to get worse.  So now we have a deluded and likely mentally ill U.S. Army Master Sergeant blow himself up in a Tesla in front of a Trump hotel, in Los Vegas, claiming to be in support of Trump. 

MSG Livelsberger was likely pretty nuts and perhaps suffering from injuries that contributed to what he did.  But what's not really been circulated is what his full note said.  Somebody has published it, but I didn't save the link.  The truncated note says:

We are the United States of America, the best country people to ever exist! But right now we are terminally ill and headed toward collapse.

This was not a terrorist attack, it was a wake up call. Americans only pay attention to spectacles and violence. What better way to get my point across than a stunt with fireworks and explosives?

Why did I personally do it now? I needed to cleanse my mind of the brothers I’ve lost and relieve myself of the burden of the lives I took.

An email he left states:

In case I do not make it to my decision point or on to the Mexico border I am sending this now. Please do not release this until 1JAN and keep my identity private until then.

First off I am not under duress or hostile influence or control. My first car was a 2006 Black Ford Mustang V6 for verification.

What we have been seeing with "drones" is the operational use of gravitic propulsion systems powered aircraft by most recently China in the east coast, but throughout history, the US. Only we and China have this capability. Our OPEN location for this activity in the box is below.

China has been launching them from the Atlantic from submarines for years, but this activity recently has picked up. As of now, it is just a show of force and they are using it similar to how they used the balloon for sigint and isr, which are also part of the integrated coms system. There are dozens of those balloons in the air at any given time.

The so what is because of the speed and stealth of these unmanned AC, they are the most dangerous threat to national security that has ever existed. They basically have an unlimited payload capacity and can park it over the WH if they wanted. It's checkmate.

USG needs to give the history of this, how we are employing it and weaponizing it, how China is employing them and what the way forward is. China is poised to attack anywhere in the east coast

I've been followed for over a week now from likely homeland or FBI, and they are looking to move on me and are unlikely going to let me cross into Mexico, but won't because they know I am armed and I have a massive VBIED. I've been trying to maintain a very visible profile and have kept my phone and they are definitely digitally tracking me.

I have knowledge of this program and also war crimes that were covered up during airstrikes in Nimruz province Afghanistan in 2019 by the admin, DoD, DEA and CIA. I conducted targeting for these strikes of over 125 buildings (65 were struck because of CIVCAS) that killed hundreds of civilians in a single day. USFORA continued strikes after spotting civilians on initial ISR, it was supposed to take 6 minutes and scramble all aircraft in CENTCOM. The UN basically called these war crimes, but the administration made them disappear. I was part of that cover-up with USFORA and Agent [Redacted] of the DEA. So I don't know if my abduction attempt is related to either. I worked with GEN Millers 10 staff on this as well as the response to Bala Murghab. AOB-S Commander at the time. [Redacted] can validate this.

You need to elevate this to the media so we avoid a world war because this is a mutually assured destruction situation.

For vetting my Linkedin is Matt Berg or Matthew Livelsberger, an active duty 18Z out of 1-10 my profile is public. I have an active TSSCI with UAP USAP access."

Okay, he was pretty much bat shit crazy.  But in an era in which people listen to Tucker Carlson and Robert F. Kennedy Jr., . . . well you are going to get bat shit.

And then there's  Luigi Mangione.

Absolutely frighting meme endorsing murder.  That this is going around, is telling.

We haven't heard from him yet, but we all know that Luigi Mangione murdered the head of United Health Care seemingly because he was the head of United Health Care.

Moreover, some people are celebrating the murder.

That's outright scary.  And its interesting. I can't recall terrorist attacks against corporate officers, except in extreme times. There was of course the famous Wall Street Bombing of 1920, which shows up on this site as we covered its 100th Anniversary.  

Who would have expected something like that to return?

And then there were the radical groups of the 1970s, which seemed to be something that was behind us.

A lot of the same rage that fueled the rise of Trump fuels an anger like this, even though Trump himself is a very wealthy man and is now backed by the world's richest man, Elon Musk. 

On New Years Day a Muslim American from Texas, who was a U.S. Army veteran, performed an act of terrorism in New Orleans. The perpetrator may have also entered the bat shit region.  Apparently he left a note that he originally intended to act in support of ISIL by killing his family, which is downright bizarre.  He changed his mind and hit New Orleans, leaving a note that he conceived of himself in a war between believers and non believers.  Hitting New Orleans makes sense, in that contexts, although the press seems to have missed it, as its so heavily associated with a Catholic religions event, lent, in the form of a heavily secularized observation, Mardi Gras.

This attack is definitely different, I guess, and actually feeds into something that Trumpites have long maintained, that being that non Christian societies don't necessarily integrate well here.  Indeed, an irony of the 2024 election is that Muslims upset about the US supporting Israel in the current war didn't support Harris, and now are going to see a President who is in the Israel can do no wrong camp.

Am I blaming Trump for all of this?

No.

Some of it?

Well, sort of.

The same sort of ardent anger that gave rise to populist MAGA and the January 20 insurrection gives rise to an atmosphere where some serving members of the military feel they need to strike out against an imaginary domestic enemy.  Moreover, those inclined to political violence over their plight, often have no clear direction in how they do it.

Students of history would do well to recall that more than one member of the Nazi Party had been members of the German Communist Party. The rage that fueled a misbegotten fanatic love of the worst President in American history can just as easily turn on him, or on those conceived of as being class enemies, or contribute to an atmosphere of violence in general.

I have some predications regarding this.  And I'm going to leap back to Sen. Barrasso, who posted this in the wake of the attacks.

After what we saw in New Orleans, it is critical that the Senate confirms President Trump’s national security team as quickly as possible.

Eh?  How so?

Well, seeing as this refers to New Orleans, my first prediction is that the MAGA camp that is hostile to all immigrants is the one that will prevail.  Rather, the one that is hostile to all "alien" cultures is the one that will prevail.  Sorry Vivek Ganapathy Ramaswamy, you ain't a White Anglo Saxon Protestant, so you need to leave. 

That will be the view.

I'm not saying that's Dr. Barrasso's view.  I strongly suspect that the Wyoming Senator's views on things are much, much, much, much further to the left than his statements suggest, and much, much, much further to the left than those even held by traditional Wyomingites.  I don't even think he thought that out.  It just sounds like a good thing to say in your role as whip.

I will note that both attacks share one single commonality.  They were carried out by veterans of the United States Army.  There has been an ongoing investigation into extremism in the military, but my guess is that this isn't what Sen. Barrasso is talking about.  Indeed, the GOP was quick to leap on the thesis that the New Orleans attack was carried out by a recent immigrant, which it wasn't. And the second attack. . . that was carried out by a Green Beret.

One of my predictions is that we're going to see a violent couple of years.

The other is that within a year and a half the editorial pages of the American Rifleman, who fawned over Trump, will be decrying a GOP embrace of gun control.  Fans of radicals who proclaim themselves to be for democracy and freedom while ranting about others as enemies should here to study history.  

Gun control came in to the USSR with the Communists, after they'd secured power at the barrel of a gun.  It was the Irish Republicans who brought gun control into Ireland, after the republic had been won with guns.  People like to claim the Nazis brought gun control to Germany (they didn't), but those who like to yell that should recall that Hitler was elected into office as part of a populist movement that promised to fix the economy and which hated "others", so to speak.

As soon as Trump sees the populace as the enemy to his safety, he'll act to preserve himself.  It's not, after all, as if he's been competing at Camp Perry and he doesn't need anyone's vote in four years.  If he acts, what are those who supported him on this issue going to do, join the Democrats?

A third, and final, prediction.  Wyoming won't see one single good thing come its way due to the Trump Administration.  All the things that people imagine will occur, won't.  There won't be more oil drilled in some magic fashion.  The coal industry won't come roaring back.  Agriculture, and by that I mean real agriculture, will suffer due to trade policies.  Inflation will increase.

Waiting in the wings.

One final prediction.

There's a really good chance that much of what I'm noting won't come about for one reason.

J. D. Vance.

I don't want to sound like a Vance booster.  I'm not.  I do think he'd make a much better President that Trump, however, as he's not demented.

My guess is that Vance has an 18 month schedule for removing Trump.

Presidential Sedevacantism. Musing on something that won't occur. 

I've noticed that some have been developing a desperate set of legal theories proposing that Donald "Felonious Balonius, Potty Mouth" Trump can't be sworn in as President.

Well, he will be, but its interesting.

Let's start with this.

Donald Trump won the 2024 election, taking the popular vote as well as the electoral.  The popular vote part is really amazing, quite frankly, and something that probably even Trump didn't anticipate.  Indeed, it wasn't all that long ago that the Republican Party itself seriously wondered if it was doomed to demographic extinction, and the Democrats planned on it being and Trump was already creating lies on why he'd lost.

We'll note we were ahead of the curve on the demographic aspect in predicting that the Democrats, and for that matter the Republicans, on that, were likely wrong.

So Trump was elected, he will be sworn into office, and he will be the President in late January.  I'm not going to say for the next four years, as frankly, I've been amazed that neither Trump or Biden expired due to natural causes before now, and I don't really expect either of them to make it through the next four. 

I also expect, as is obvious, for Vance to wheel him out the door into managed health care at Mara Largo.

They are, after all, old.

Okay, so what are people pondering?

Well, purely as an exercise, could a case be made that Trump will not be the President?  Some are musing on that.

Well, you can (even though this is not going to occur).

Trump, is a felon.  He was convicted of 34 counts of falsifying business records.

This is an odd conviction, frankly. I really think those charges were fairly weak.  I question if they'll hold up on appeal.  But, be that as it may, he's been convicted of 34 counts of what amounts to a felony.

Let's look at felonies.

Blackstone, looking back at the long history of the term, maintained that “the true criterion of fel e also acknowledges a change in meaning over time: “The idea of felony is, indeed, so generally connected with that of capital punishment that we find it hard to separate them . . . .”19 As the definition of felony became less definitely tied to forfeiture and the use of capital punishment became more general, the number of felonies in English law multiplied. The traditional common law felonies were nine: murder, manslaughter, arson, burglary, robbery, rape, sodomy, mayhem, and larceny.20 Many more were added by statute. Francis Bacon, writing around 1620, listed some thirty-four felonies, including witchcraft and harboring a priest.21 Blackstone lamented that, in his day, “no less than a hundred and sixty [offenses] have been declared by act of parliament to be felonies . . . or, in other words, to be worthy of instant death

Unintended Collateral Consequences: Defining Felony in the Early American Republic.  Will Tress  University of Baltimore School of Law 

Sedevacantism is a hyper ultra extreme traditionalist Catholic thesis by a tiny minority that holds that the Seat of Peter, i.e., the office of Pope, is vacant and has been since 1958, or maybe even early.

It's frankly out to lunch, and so the thesis advanced below, a political thesis, likely is as well.

But I'll advance it anyhow.

Donald Trump cannot legitimately be sworn in as President in January, and therefore the administering of the oath of office to him will work a nullity, and there will be no President for the next four years.

Eh?

A felon cannot be sworn into office due to forfeiture.  That's the essence of forfeiture.

A photo of Donald Trump that appeared this week on Twitter.  I don't know the source.  It's postered here for another reason.  When Trump is caught in candid moments, which is fairly rarely, he looks like what he is, an old out of shape man.  His ramblings of this past week once again have raised questions on his mental status.  I continue to be surprised that old age didn't catch up on a permanent basis with either Biden or Trump, but then I'm still not convinced that either one of them, or at least one of them, will not expire due to natural causes before the inauguration.  I'm also convinced that the National Conservatives are already pondering removing him from office due to mental decline.

Now, the Constitution doesn't mention felonies at all.  Indeed, it'd hardly have to as the death penalty for the collection of them would make it unlikely that a felon would ever run for office.

That's likely why the Constitution just speaks of "high crimes and misdemeanors" when it refers to impeachment.

And it also says that Congress "may" impeach for those reasons, not must. 

Anyhow, not going to happen.

A more interesting one is the application of the 14th Amendment, which bars insurrectionist from office. 

Trump is an insurrectionist, so those who claim he's barred by the 14th Amendment are 100% correct.  He is.

But the 14th Amendment is a 19th Century amendment and much of the law before the early 20th Century was vague by modern standards.  Indeed, this is constantly a problem with Constitutional interpretation, and provides the reason that scholars and the courts have to look back in time to try to figure out what the drafters meant.

This is a really interesting one.  When drafted, everyone knew who the insurrectionist were, they were the Southerners who betrayed their country by serving in the Southern governments and thier armies.  But it doesn't' actually say that.

Apparently, nobody felt it had to.  The amendment worked just find and when people wanted back in, after repenting of their treason, they were provided with a legal means of doing so.  

Given that, the way this works is really weird in a current context.  You are supposed to just presume somebody is an insurrectionist, if they participated in an insurrection, and its up to them to ask for legal forgiveness.  If you don't think you were guilty of insurrection, you'd have to challenge it in court and prove you weren't, which is the reverse of the legal norms.

This causes all sorts of problems in a modern context. There's been no legal declaration, outside of Colorado, that an insurrection occurred.  Does that work?  Who knows, it hadn't been tested.

Indeed, what this would require would be an immediate legal challenge in the Federal Courts, or a mass refusal to swear Trump in, neither of which are going to occur, and frankly probably shouldn't.  It would provoke a constitutional crisis, at this point, which is likely to be worse than having Trump be the presumed President, at least for the next 18 months.

But if we assume all of this is correct, and that its' challenged, and ultimately a Federal Court gets around to ruling, "yup, he wasn't President", who would be?

Well, until somebody was sworn in, maybe nobody.

More likely, the Court would backdoor in his status until the legal decision was made.

None of this, we'd note, is going to happen.  No court challenge is going to be made, and probably none should be.  

Last edition.

Cliffnotes of the Zeitgeist, 69th Edition. TDS, Vance in the wings. Our geriatric oligarchy. Immigration spats. Banning puberty blockers. Mjuk flicka and the Mantilla Girls.

Labels: Donald Trump, Elon Musk, J. D. Vance, mehr Mensch sein, National Conservatism, Old Age, Populism, The rich and the poor, The roles of men and women, Trump Derangement Syndrome, Zeitgeist