Superday was the end to a pretty super week

Promoting the brand at Cheyenne's Superday.

When asked to describe Cheyenne's Superday, I sometimes say, "It's like Denver Capitol Hill People's Fair -- without all the hippies."

I get puzzled looks from those who've never attended the People's Fair. That's OK. The People's Fair was -- and still is I guess -- a sprawling street fair started by the counterculture types at Capitol Hill United Neighborhoods (CHUN). This may be hard to believe, but 45 years ago, Capitol Hill was largely unexplored territory, populated by winos, ethnic minorities, longhairs in crash pads, culties, and Greatest Generationites who never got the memo to escape to the burbs.

Adventurous long-haired entrepreneurs bought old houses, staking out a claim in the territory. Enough of them arrived to form a united front, which turned out to be CHUN. That, of course, led to a People's Fair and, much later, legalized marijuana, coffee shops on every corner and craft breweries on every other corner. Hipsters, too. Who needs to read long boring histories about the Front Range when you can come here and get an encapsulated version?

Superday is Middle America's street fair. It was political parties and candidates, during even years anyway.   Non-profits of all kinds have booths. Alzheimer's Association, NARAL, Latina Conference for Youth, Head Start. YMCA. There's a big car show and lots of play areas for the kiddos. Military recruiters are on hand, as are a host of evangelical orgs. Many of the flyers I carried home from Superday featured offers to save my soul and that of America, which seemed to be in particular peril this week after some historic SCOTUS rulings. Save your soul -- all hell is breaking loose. And don't forget to make a generous donation!

I worked the booth for the Laramie County Democrats and its fund-raising arm, the Grassroots Coalition. We were sited adjacent to Head Start and an empty spot that was the site of an unspecified org which chose to take their cause elsewhere when they saw the neighborhood. They were OK with the U.S. Army booth next door. But Democrats? No way. They didn't even stick around to see our nifty "Love is Love" rainbow T-shirts and the life-sized cardboard cut-out of President Barack Obama, who had a pretty good week.

Democrats are woefully outnumbered in Wyoming and Laramie County. But we tend to show up at things like Superday. Republicans don't have to show up as FOX News does the work for them. We get plenty of dirty looks. And more than one person said they didn't want to have their photo taken with the Prez. They were polite about it. Wyomingites are polite, except when you turn them loose on online forums. That's when they vent their spleens, anonymously, of course. There are some pretty ugly spleens out there.

One middle-aged woman made a beeline to our booth and announced that she was an ex-lesbian. That was fine with us. We supposed that being an ex-lesbian was just as good as being an ex-husband or an ex-NFL linebacker or an ex-Republican. Unfortunately, she didn't let it go at that. She contended that homosexuality was a choice. And now we were all going to have to recognize gay marriage and that it was the Democrats' fault. I had seen this person at Tea Party rallies. She crowded our booth and asked each of us, in turn, if we were homosexual. At that moment, none of us were, so that's how we answered. She responded that we could all change that status and become a protected class, thanks to the Democrats and now, the U.S. Supreme Court and its judicial tyranny.

This went on for some time. We tried to reason with the poor woman but to no avail. She eventually moved on, leaving us a bit flustered. Instead of arguing with her, maybe we should have called out the gendarmes? But she probably would have screamed about "government overreach." We could have calmed her with soothing music or therapy-speak which, to Democrats, is almost like a second language. But we all got into the spirit of the debate/shouting match. When you're a liberal living in Wyoming, you tire of these shouting matches. No attempt at logic tends to reach the blunt skulls. Liberals, for our part, tend to be condescending, which doesn't help. Eventually you have to throw up your hands and walk away, heading to the nearest bar.

2014 -- that was the year that was

A look back at this rapidly-fading year....

January

Wyoming Highway Patrol on the alert for legal Colorado pot crossing the border....The creeds and oaths of our youth....Medicaid expansion rally at Wyoming Capitol....Whale of a tale on a Florida beach....Artspace comes to Cheyenne....From beach boy to beach cowboy....Feeding your fiction-writing habit....Remembering Rep. Sue Wallis.

February

Cheyenne launches Artspace project....Unplanned winter off-roading in Wyoming....Halfway mark of painful legislative session....Colorado burger wranglers commute to Chey-town.

March

Courage v. Wyoming may force state to live up to Equality State brand....Irish or not?...Florida vs. Wyoming in retirement destination battle....Avoid politics in gardening discussions....Psychiatrists aren't crazy about living in Wyoming....Spring is lion time.

April

Welcome to the Magic City of the Plains....Cheyenne corners the market on Gov candidates.... Dumbing down state science standards....Wishing Colorado a happy 420 day....The future belongs to aggies and artists.... Revisiting the Great D&D Panic of the 1990s....Putting the community in community college.

May

Miss Atomic Bomb....Writers Speaking Out Loud....Wonky in Rock Springs....Famous for all of the wrong reasons....Cindy Hill's little red book.

June

Remembering my mother and the U.S. Cadet Nurse Corps....Summertime in WYO....St. Michael in downtown Cheyenne....Visiting a sick friend....Lesson for politicians -- beware of poets....That was one super day.

July

How you gonna keep 'em down on the farm....Revisiting a 1970 pot protest in D.C....Welcome to the West's wet years....Old books live on....Music, melodrama and politics at CFD....Wyoming Democrats respond.

August

At the Music & Poetry Series in Casper....As I begin my tenth year of blogging liberally....Gov's science panel....Satire is in the eye of the beholder.

September

Hemingway found a clean, well-lighted place in Wyoming's Big Horn Mountains....Day one of touristing on the high plains.,..Day two of touristing on the high plains....The rich are different -- they want to destroy Wyoming's public pension plan....Americanism trumps conservatism in Colorado schools.

October

Envisioning the future of Cheyenne's downtown....Final words on Mental Health Awareness Week....Wyoming Liberty Group threatens state retirement plans....VOTE!....Book preview for "Living Behind the Carbon Curtain."

November

Lifting of Wyoming's same-sex marriage ban a big surprise....Might be time to change that obnoxious county name....New generation of book censors....If we're going to keep our young people in the state....No Black Friday for me....Yummy Gore-Tex for seniors.

December

This progressive wants to go to Mars...What happens when Wyoming tourists no longer want to drive?....Gubment-hating righties invade Wyoming.

So much to write about. So little time. Happy New Year!

Gubment-hating righties invade Wyoming

The takeover of Wyoming by right-wing zealots has begun.

It may seem that Wyoming was lost to the rising tide of extremism a long time ago.

But you ain't seen nothing yet.

Republicans handily outnumber Democrats in both chambers of the state legislature. We got a new batch of right-wing crazies in the most recent election, notably Harlan Edmonds in HD 12 who defeated incumbent Democrat Lee Filer. Filer had been a staunch advocate for his constituency and had shown how to get things done even though outnumbered. But voters in his district, the ones who showed up, punched that "R" button, letting Red State partisan politics rise above their own best interests. Edmonds is a gubment-hating state employee. His wife is on the board of the Wyoming Liberty Group, a right-wing lobbying group funded by Susan Gore and backed by the Koch brothers. Its goals include destroying the state's pension system. Its ultimate goal is to turn Wyoming into the poster child for a philosophy that starves state government to make it small enough to drown in a bathtub, as Tea Party favorite Grover Norquist once famously said. Wyoming can then become the ultimate refuge for the new oligarch class -- energy billionaires, Dick Cheney and family, Susan Gore, Wal-Mart heirs, Wall Street rip-off artists and all of their fellow travelers. Wyofile's Gregory Nickerson has done several articles on the impact of outside forces on Wyoming politics. On Dec. 9, he wrote about a conservative think tank the Foundation for Government Accountability (FGA), a 501(c)3 nonprofit based in Naples, Florida, conducting a push poll in Wyoming. The results, of course, showed that 70 percent of Wyoming residents oppose Medicaid expansion in Wyoming.

They spent $742,000 on the Uncover Obamacare project in 2013. The Wyoming effort is part of that campaign for year 2014.

One of FGA’s principal funders is Donors Capital Fund, an Arlington, Va., donor-aggregator group that raised $60 million in 2013. It granted $213,500 to the Foundation for Government Accountability in 2012. 

Donors Capital Fund also gave $240,000 to the Wyoming Liberty Group in 2009, $230,000 in 2010, and $15,000 in 2011.

Word on the street says that funneled more than $1 million into Wyoming last year. The Wyoming Liberty Group had nine attorney-lobbyists on their staff during the last legislative session and are certain to have more in 2015. As Wyoming blogger Rodger McDaniel stated in a Dec. 13 op-ed in the Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, Rep. Cale Case (R-Lander) is on the board of directors of the Liberty Group. One wonders why a state legislator would be on the board of a group hell-bent on destroying the state employee retirement system. Rep. Case used to be a moderate. We wonder when that changed.

See more at http://wyofile.com/gregory_nickerson/florida-group-takes-aim-wyoming-medicaid-expansion/

Sunday morning round-up: Yummy Gore-tex for seniors, Wyoming Medicaid expansion and "The Poor Are Always With Us"

As we draw closer to the next Wyoming legislative session, we eagerly anticipate having fun with oddball bills promulgated by Republican legislators. State employees may see attempts to change the pension plan from an almost-fully-funded defined benefit plan to something crafted by the Koch Brothers and their minions at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Fellow prog-blogger Rodger McDaniel wrote yesterday about the Wyoming Liberty Group which is working overtime against the current retirement system, calling it a "gold-plated pension plan." The money behind the WLG is right-winger Susan Gore of Texas, who has nothing better to do with her billions than to ensure that hundreds of retirees eat cast-off Gore-tex plucked from dumpsters instead of living -- and eating -- comfortably in retirement. Wonder if Gore-tex tastes better than three-day-old pizza crusts or half-eaten Big Macs? We may all find out if Gore and her outside agitators have their way with the legislature.

Dem gubernatorial candidate Pete Gosar pressed Gov. Mead on this issue for months during the campaign. Now it appears that Medicaid expansion is coming to Wyoming. This excerpt comes from Talking Points Memo:

Wyoming Gov. Matt Mead's administration is officially recommending that the state expand Medicaid under Obamacare, making the Republican governor the latest conservative to embrace a key pillar of the health care reform law. 

The state department of health released a modified plan to expand the low-income insurance plan, the Casper Star-Tribune reported, which pulls from the alternative expansion plans pursued by some other states. 

If you are among Wyoming's 17,000-some uninsured, get more info at the Wyoming Department of Health.

Love this quote by a writer I admire, Walter Mosley (from Vintage Shorts):

“A good short story crosses the borders of our nations and our prejudices and our beliefs. A good short story asks a question that can’t be answered in simple terms. And even if we come up with some understanding, years later, while glancing out of a window, the story still has the potential to return, to alter right there in our mind and change everything.”

Earlier today, I dug out the 1985 Tobias Wolff story anthology, Back in the World. I was talking about Wolff yesterday after I found out that he's one of the presenters at the 2015 Jackson Hole Writers Conference. I was talking to a writer friend about one of Wolff's stories. I thought it was called "The Rich Are Always With Us." I was in the ballpark -- the story's called "The Poor Are Always With Us."  I first read the story a couple decades ago and it stayed with me. It has to do with conflicts between generations in Silicon Valley. Now that I found it, I had to read the story again. I suggest you do the same. I didn't even have to look out the window to realize the effect Wolff's story had on me then and now.

Wyoming Liberty Group threatens state retirement plans

A big thanks to Patrick Crank for his fiery op-ed in Saturday's Wyoming Tribune-Eagle, "Liberty Group threatens state retirement plans."

Crank, a local attorney and former attorney general of Wyoming, attended the Wyoming Liberty Group's "Pension Reform Summit" Oct. 6 in Cheyenne. In case you don't know, the Liberty Group is a right-wing fringe organization funded by ultra-conservative Texas gazillionaire Susan Gore. Its sole purpose, it seems, is to destroy the state's excellent retirement system to further marginalize the state's workers.

About 25 firefighters covered by the state retirement plan showed up at this so-called summit. They were denied entrance. Crank and one other retired firefighter finally were allowed to observe the meeting. Keynote speaker was State Rep. Donald Burkhart (R-Rawlins). Rep. Burkhart has a seat on the powerful House Appropriations Committee and was selected by the speaker of the house to serve as liaison to the Wyoming Retirement Board.

He was joined at the summit by a batch of Republican lawmakers. Two of them are legislative liaisons to the Retirement Board: Sen. Curt Meier (R-LaGrange) and Rep. Mike Madden (R-Buffalo), The others were Republican representatives Sue Wilson of Cheyenne and Marti Halverson of Etna and Republican senator Cale Case of Lander. Not sure where the Democrats were, especially those from Laramie County, home to a majority of state workers. Perhaps their invitations were lost in the mail.

Who else was at the meeting?

Other than these legislators, virtually everyone else at the meeting appeared to be either Liberty Group staff and members and paid out-of-state lobbyists.

This is a key element of the Liberty Group -- its funded by out-of-state money, run by out-of-staters and it employs out-of-state lobbyists in an attempt to destroy Wyoming's excellent retirement system. One has to wonder why all of these people from Texas and Colorado and elsewhere don't have something else to do, such as foreclosing on widows and gaming the stock market. They're doing that too. I'm just surprised that they have time for little ol' Wyoming retirees.

Patrick Crank wonders about that too:

Why are ultra-rich right-wing groups, financed by multi-billionaires, attacking our ability to have a reasonable income during our golden years? 

Why are they attacking our children's ability to obtain a reasonable retirement plan for their years of work yet to come?

We also have to wonder why so many of our Republican legislators are eager to sign on to the Liberty Group/Susan Gore agenda? Yes, they hate gubment and think state employees such as myself are bums. These right-wingers are angry as hell and aren't going to take it anymore. Just why they are angry when they seem to have it all is another question entirely.

Republican-dominated and sparsely-populated Wyoming must seem like a juicy test case for these out-of-state interests. They may look at us as some sort of backwater that can be turned into a colony for oligarchs served by an army of compliant serfs who get paid peanuts and go into their golden years without a farthing. We are, after all, the state with the highest number of billionaires per capita. Hey, it's only six, but all of their pals are looking to the future to see how subservient they can make the population, how compliant they can make our Republican-dominated legislature.

Crank wrapped up his op-ed succinctly:

It is wrong that ultra-right-wing millionaires, with the assistance of elected representatives like Mr. Burkhart, have chose to attack this benefit of work life that has served the United States well for the last century.

It is wrong.

Time to talk to your legislator about this issue. BTW, Rep. Burkhart's e-mail is Donald.Burkhart@wyoleg.gov. You can find more e-mails and phone numbers of legislators at Wyoming LegisWeb.