D-I-V-O-R-C-E

First, NO, I’m not getting a Divorce. And yet, in a way, we (my wife and I) are. We’ve lived in the state of Washington for longer than some of you have been alive. Hell, we’ve lived here long enough for that time period to run for President. Departing the area feels sort of like getting a divorce, and having gone through that hell twice, I know where of I speak.

Now unless you are our age or older, OR are a REAL oldies country music fan, you probably don’t know who the gal with the bouffant at the top of the page is, or what the hell the title of this piece means. So allow me to old-mansplain:

That gal is one of the top fifteen country singers of all time. Tammy Wynette. One of her biggest hits was the title I’m using. The song is about a woman who’s staring down the barrel of her divorce being finalized, and her and her boy leaving the family house, explaining her regrets. All with the background of having to spell out a lot of words so that the young boy doesn’t learn that mommy and daddy are splitting the sheets. (Why they’re keeping it a secret from the kid can’t be explained adequately in today’s world, just understand that in the early sixties, it was still a really bad thing to break up a marriage, and in most states, you had to show good reason, like infidelity.)

I know that’s foreign to today’s world of three-week marriages, and “fill it out yourself” divorces, but while there were some really broken things in that culture, well… Ours today isn’t any better, just differently broken.

The feelings of regret that we couldn’t make it work, and the remembrances of what I loved about the state, are much the same is the sort of experience you feel when you’re the person that decided that “I love you, but you’re too broken to fix, and you’re going to kill us both if I stay, so with the deepest regrets, I am going to save myself.”

(By the way, if you don’t feel that way when you go through a marriage breakup, either you absolutely should not have gotten married in the first place, it was an incredibly stupid move, OR you’re the cause of the break-up, and need to get yourself fixed, because you’re the problem.)

Looking at the last couple pieces I’ve done here, and reflecting on how T.J., G.W. and the rest of the rebels spoke before their formal Divorce from the Crown: They all seemed to experience the same sort of “We have tried everything, we’ve begged and pleaded, threatened and cajoled, and it all fell on deaf ears. To save ourselves, we have to bounce” feelings.

Most of them, with a few notable exceptions (Patrick Henry, Paul Revere, Thomas Paine, and John Hancock among others) worked tirelessly to try and achieve reconciliation. Parliament, on the other hand, basically acted like the proverbial bad husband, slapping the colonists across the room, for even suggesting that they should have a say in how the marriage is run. (It’s the evil old joke about what do you tell a woman with two black eyes? Nothing, you done told the bitch twice.)

Along with that is the knowledge that so many of the things we’re doing, we’re doing for the last time. We had a BBQ this weekend, and invited all of our friends, for one last chance to burn meat, drink fluids, and tell stories. I went to lodge last night with the heavy and certain knowledge that while I will forever be a member of Steadfast Lodge, I will probably never climb those stairs again.

Folks here keep asking “but you’re going to come back, right?”

Well, honestly, that’s sort of like the ex asking if you wanna come back for a booty call, for “old times sake.” Unless this state changes direction dramatically, I can’t see myself ever wanting to give it a chance to screw me over again. So my answer has become: “The farm is going to take up a lot of our life, so I can’t make any promises, except this one: If you find yourself in Northeastern Tennessee, there will always be a bed, a plate, and a glass with your name on it. Stop by any time.”

Just a couple of minor (really, these are the minor things that crossed my desk in one day) examples: Washington State government spending in the last ten years has increased 116%. With Taxes trying to keep up with that ridiculous number. Marriage licenses are going to go up by 139% this year alone, with the money going to pay for “Domestic Violence Co-responder Programs.” These will be “mental health professionals” that respond alongside cops to D.V. calls. So basically, they’re disincentivizing getting married. Seems like if you want to have the people responsible for the problem pay for it, you would tax the filing for divorce, but that’s just me.

Add to that the fact that they’ve done the magazine restriction thing that CA has, passed a ‘you gotta buy a license to buy a gun, and we can refuse you that license after you paid for it’ law, have passed a law that says “on vehicle stuff, and pollution stuff, what ever California says, is law here too.” Oh, and don’t even think about opening an animal farm or a butcher shop here…

Dinner is leftovers from the BBQ. The tip jar is at the link and I thank those of you who donated to the cause. You are why I keep doing this.

The entire nation seems to be going through variations on this theme, with the deep blue sections continuing to out and out ignore any orders, rulings, or laws that they don’t like. For example, we have the most recent ruling by SCOTUS that “NO, Judge Myong Joun, we really meant it when we said “Trump, as the head of the Executive Branch, can fire people from the Executive Branch, you dumb twit! We don’t care if the layoffs will “likely cripple the department” as you put it, it’s his to cripple! It’s what the voters voted for!”

Of course, the left is losing what they claim is their minds about this. https://www.kcra.com/article/supreme-court-backs-trump-education-department-layoffs/65402711

In a similar but even more blatant case of sticking their fingers in their ears and screaming “LA-LA-LA I CAN’T HEAR YOU!”

The Justice department Tuesday sued three members of the board of the ”Corporation for Public Broadcasting” because after being fired by President Trump, they first sued The Government saying, in effect “He can’t fire us, he’s not the boss of us!” (Oh, wait, there it is, right in the NAME, Public! Guess what, Laura Ross, Thomas Rothman, Diane Kaplan, YES he can, yes he is.) Then when the judge that heard their plea laughed them out of court, they completely ignored the ruling by Judge Randolph Moss (an Obama Appointee) and continued to attend board meetings, continued to vote, and have their votes counted, and continued to collect a check.

After being told, “Yes, he can fire you, and did so,” they announced that the decision was a VICTORY, and said that the three board members would remain. After which, the Board convened and moved to change their bylaws (the motion made by one of the fired members) so that the President of the US is no longer authorized to appoint or fire the board members!!! The vote went Four- Zero in favor of the change, with the three fired board members all voting for it and one of the five board members apparently not voting for some reason.

They continue to attend meetings, and vote. Trump is trying to remove the five hundred million bucks in federal funding that these folks get a year, in effect saying, “well if you choose to be immune to Presidential orders, you can’t have Presidential MONEY.” https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/jul/15/trump-sues-public-broadcasting-board-members-refuse-fired/

I tell you, only in D.C.! If I tried to write a novel where some character in the government was fired and chose to ignore the action, and continue to do his job, my editor would never let me publish it.

Then we’ve got Senators Alex Padilla, and Cory Booker among others who are trying to get a law passed called Visible Identification Standards for Immigration Based Law Enforcement (VISIBLE).

Now, I get it, Andy and Barney would never wear a mask in Mayberry. On the other hand, Andy and Barney weren’t trying to arrest Cartel terrorists who were taking over the town and charging people to live there, killing cops and their families, and turning Mayberry into some sort of Central American hell hole, while a bunch of politicians were cheering them on, and demanding that Andy quit messing with those poor misunderstood boys. The idea that if Andy wrote a ticket on some guy, people would show up in blackout commando gear and machinegun Aunt Bea, and Oppy to death, wasn’t exactly part of the plot line.

If Padilla and Booker don’t like what ICE is doing, wearing masks when dealing with these people, they really wouldn’t like how I would handle it. Frankly I would call it what it is, an invasion, and use the military not in a “Law Enforcement Assistance” role, but in a COIN (Counter Insurgency) role. In other words, I would shoot them as invading combatants.

California continues their decisions that “what D.C. says only maters if we agree” with the complete ignoring of the latest version of Title nine, that states that “women’s sports are for biological women” and has gotten a suit filed against them by the Federales. Maine is also playing this game, and that suit was filed a while back.

Cali also decided that “Eminent Domain means what ever we want it to mean,” and is passing a law allowing L.A. to take the lands in the Palisades area that burned, to make low-income housing. Now this would be radical enough, if they were paying the real fair market value… But wait, there’s more.

The plan allows LA, which has been keeping the owners of the land from rebuilding by not issuing any construction permits, to pay based on current use valuation. In other words, “Yes, I know there was a ten million dollar mansion on this place, and your insurance will allow you to rebuild it, but that’s not important. This is, right now, just a chunk of baren land with a burnt-out wreck on it. Value? Minimal. It’s not even worth what raw land is worth, because the buyer would have to tear down the building following all sorts of complex environmental guidelines that we’re going to establish. Here, have a half mil for your acre of land 500 feet from the water, and fuck off.”

I would feel more sympathy for those folks, if it were not for the fact that the people getting screwed on this, were mostly people that voted those thieves into office. To paraphrase H. L. Mencken, “they’re getting what they voted for, good and hard.”

I’m sure that this will increase the number of people in Cal that will do what we’re doing in WA. And yes, this will increase the power base of the left in California. But it will decrease the available money, and the people who make money for the state. In the end, this way lies ‘failed state.’ Maybe once California completely fails, we can put it in a receivership, and get someone like oh say, Florida to run it.

On the Navy front, the USN is finally getting a divorce from the Little Crappy Ships (LCS) The last Independence class LCS was delivered on Friday, marking the end of an error. These things were such a piece of shit, (as has been chronicled here at length) that they are getting decommissioned almost as soon as they’re delivered. Why didn’t we just quit building them? Because the “Gee-Wizz” boys that pushed these wastes of steel, wrote the contracts so that canceling a ship cost more than just going ahead and building it. If it was me, those boys would all be serving time in USDB Leavenworth.

Well, that will do it for today, Next week on the day I write this, we’ll be looking in the rearview mirror at Mt. St. Helens, going down to OR, for a last visit with my brother’s widow before pointing east and putting the hammer down. As a result, it will be a guest post, or very brief.

QOTD: "Instead of introducing legislation for ICE/CBP officers to unmask, why haven't these mindless leftist lemmings masquerading as elected officials condemned the violence that their rhetoric is causing?" —Allen West.

Yours in Service,

William Lehman