THE CRAZY: Senate hopeful limns litter boxes!

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 8, 2022

Plus, Motherless Child gone wild: According to more than a dozen experts, The Crazy has been a part of human life ever since our species came into existence.

At the present time, manifestations of The Crazy suffuse our nation's politics. As an example of what we mean, consider this exchange between Gail Collins and Bret Stephens in their newest Conversation at the New York Times:

Gail: In my rooting-for category, I’m going to bring up Senator Maggie Hassan in New Hampshire—just so I can mention her dreadful opponent, Don Bolduc. He’s long been known as an opponent of legal protections for transgender people. Last week, he claimed schools were giving out litter boxes to support kids who identify as cats. Which is, um … not true.

Who’s your most-to-be-avoided?

Bret: I’m with you on Hassan, a conscientious and bipartisan legislator. Who—I am amazed to say—might lose on Tuesday...

Is that even possible? Did Candidate Bolduc really advance the crackpot claim that schools have been "giving out litter boxes to support kids who identify as cats?"

Well yes, as a matter of fact, he did! Here's the Washington Times—not the Washington Post—reporting the crazy remarks:

HOWELL (11/2/22): Republican Senate candidate Don Bolduc said he is “not backing down” from a claim that a New Hampshire school has litter boxes for kids who identify as cats.

Mr. Bolduc, a retired Army brigadier general who is facing Democratic Sen. Maggie Hassan, said the burden of proof is on the school to prove it is untrue after a parent and a student talked to him about it at an event.

Audio posted by CNN depicted Mr. Bolduc telling a campaign audience there are people who identify as “furries and fuzzies” and act like cats in schools and they have litter boxes available to them.

Mr. Bolduc defended the comments when pressed on the source for his account.

More than a dozen experts shook their heads over Candidate Bolduc's remarks. But what Stephens said is also true. It's possible that Candidate Bolduc could win today's Granite State Senate election!

The capacity for crazy belief has been on wide display in our nation's politics over the past several decades. (In our view, certain types of crazy belief are widespread within our own blue tribe.)

That said, also this:

According to the American song book, "Motherless child sees a hard time when mother is gone." For fuller information on this phenomenon, you can just click here.

The Crazy is part of our natural history, but so are the difficulties sometimes faced by the motherless child. These phenomena joined forces last night on the Fox News Channel, as that station's official abandoned child continued to enact his ongoing psychodrama.

Tucker Carlson began his show with his standard sarcastic remarks—and with his trademark instant dissembling. Sarcastically, he said that there had been no problems with the conduct of the 2020 elections—absolutely no problems at all:

CARLSON (11/7/2022): Above all, in case you were wondering, voting machines around this country recorded the legitimate results [in 2020] with flawless precision. 

The machines counted each vote cast for each candidate and awarded those votes accordingly. Can you see the software that would prove that happened? Well, no, you can't. 

As with the bodycam footage from Nancy Pelosi's house, you don't have the necessary clearance to see it. But you can know that electronic voting machines are 100% safe and reliable and that's why government officials have told you again and again that the 2020 election was "the most secure in American history." 

Believe it! By the way, if you don't believe it, our advice is to shut the hell up unless you want to be sued into bankruptcy or have the FBI interrupt your breakfast. 

That, in summation, is the official media-approved view of our last election. It was perfect! Don't ask questions!

For transcript and tape, click here.

As you can see, Motherless Child feels badly beset when mother is gone! He can't (yet) see the bodycam footage from the violent attack on Paul Pelosi. Also, the FBI is very likely going to throw him in jail!

It was at this point that the abandoned child began to display his vaunted skills at selective quotation. Having sarcastically mocked the idea that the last election was free from fraud, he began to dissemble about a new report in Politico:

CARLSON (continuing directly): So given that, we were a little surprised when we pulled up Politico this morning. Politico is the publication that helps control the rest of the media on behalf of the Biden administration. We were surprised to discover that actually voting machines are not safe at all.

Electronic voting machines, Politico told us, are in fact easily hacked and manipulated, which is why real countries like France have banned them and use paper ballots instead. "There are real risks," Politico told us, "that hackers could tunnel into voting equipment and other election infrastructure to try to undermine Tuesday's vote." 

According to Politico, that's entirely possible because many states "use wireless modems to transmit unofficial election night results to their central offices. These modems use telecommunications networks that are vulnerable to hackers, and malicious actors could exploit them to tamper with unofficial vote data, corrupt voting machines or compromise the computers used to tally official results." 

Rigged voting machines? Fake vote totals? Underground tunnels to subvert modems? Isn't this the release the Kraken talk? Well, it is. and as of yesterday, it would have been regarded as insane, possibly criminal. It would have been an assault on our democracy. 

But things have changed. Twenty-four hours before Democrats are expected to lose in the midterm elections, Politico is letting you know that elections are fake and not just because of rigged electronics voting machines, by the way. There's an even bigger problem.  

From there, Motherless Child went on to offer a deeply stupid compilation of edited comments about misinformation, most of them perfectly sensible, from people on CNN. 

For today, we'll focus on the way the motherless child described that report from Politico. Also, we'll note the ridiculous way he explained Politico's alleged motives.

As we've shown you, Motherless Child told Fox viewers the following:

He told them that Politico had published a report suggesting that this week's elections will be badly compromised. He said Politico was reporting this because Politico knows that the Democrats are about to get wiped out in this week's elections.

According to Motherless Child, that's why Politico is spreading the word that this week's elections "are fake!" Rather typically, Motherless Child forgot to cite this opening passage from the Politico essay in question:

GELLER (11/7/22): The midterms face a bevy of digital threats, from stolen Twitter accounts to hacked election websites, that could spark chaos, confusion and unrest that last long after the polls close.

The 2020 presidential election was rife with allegations of voting machine hacks that were later debunked. Yet there are real risks that hackers could tunnel into voting equipment and other election infrastructure to try to undermine Tuesday’s vote.

The U.S. has many safeguards protecting voting equipment, so any actual hack would probably be localized, quickly detected and unlikely to affect final results. But as 2020 showed, even an attempt to change votes—or the mere allegation of tampering—could undermine faith in the outcome.

In fact, Politico was reporting that any attempt to hack voting equipment would likely be quickly detected—that outcomes wouldn't be affected at all. Motherless Child forgot to report this as he toyed with the people who watch him on Fox, as he does on a nightly basis.

From there, Motherless Child went on to offer a brain-damaged account of what has been said on CNN concerning mis- and disinformation. It's certainly true that CNN could do a better job with various topics, but no one turns our discourse into a clown show quite like the Motherless Child.

According to more than a dozen experts, Motherless Child seems to be involved in a lifelong psychodrama—a psychodrama not of his initial making. Experts say such people should be pitied, but not until they've been stopped from creating societal harm through their disordered behavior.  

By way of contrast, Candidate Bolduc is simply involved in The Crazy, these experts say. He's been giving voice to a crazy belief, but he may win all the same!

Given the way our species tends to regard itself, it's surprising to see that so many people can be susceptible to so many crazy beliefs. But The Crazy is all around us at present—and that returns us to the "documentary," and by extension the book, to which Kyrie Irving recently posted a link.

(For background, see yesterday's report.)

Man [sic] is the rational animal? Tomorrow, we'll turn to that recent report in RollingStone—the report which specifies which manifestations of The Crazy Irving was perhaps prepared to believe. These crazy beliefs have long bedeviled our struggling species, and they just won't go away.

When the New York Times reports this matter, it doesn't describe the crazy beliefs which are at issue here. We think RollingStone showed better judgment in explicitly describing the manifestations of The Crazy which have long dogged human life—in describing the crazy beliefs Irving seems unfazed by today.

Remember, it's all anthropology now! Our society is in a very bad state—and it's very hard to see an easy route of escape.

Tomorrow: RollingStone, willing to speak