WEDNESDAY: Chait mentioned the Journal's report about Musk!

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2025

We gave the report a look: Is something "wrong" with Elon Musk? Could something be clinically wrong?

We can't offer a clinical assessment. But in the realm of the colloquial, good God! 

Is there any bullsh*t this disordered man doesn't rush to affirm? Last Friday, at the Atlantic, Jonathan Chait offered this report on that general topic, dual headline included:

Paranoia Is Winning
How Elon Musk’s conspiracy theories became official White House policy

The Trump administration’s attempt to eliminate USAID is many things: an unfolding humanitarian nightmare, a rollback of American soft power, the thin end of a wedge meant to reorder the Constitution. But upon closer examination, it is also an outbreak of delusional paranoia that has spread from Elon Musk throughout the Republican Party’s rank and file.

Soon Musk declared that he had uncovered explosive evidence for this belief: The agency had funneled $8 million to Politico. Why exactly the Marxist plotters at USAID would select Politico as the vehicle for their scheme—its owner, the German media giant Axel Springer, has right-of-center politics with a strong pro-Israel tilt—has not been fully explained. But Musk’s discovery soon rocketed across X, the social-media platform he owns and uses promiscuously, and became official government policy.

“LOOKS LIKE BILLIONS OF DOLLARS HAVE BEEN STOLLEN [sic] AT USAID, AND OTHER AGENCIES, MUCH OF IT GOING TO THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA AS A ‘PAYOFF’ FOR CREATING GOOD STORIES ABOUT THE DEMOCRATS,” Trump wrote on his own social-media site, Truth Social. “THE LEFT WING ‘RAG,’ KNOWN AS ‘POLITICO,’ SEEMS TO HAVE RECEIVED $8,000,000 … THIS COULD BE THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY!”

In fact, USAID has not given millions to Politico. The agency subscribed to E&E News by Politico, a premium service that provides detailed, fairly boring, and decidedly noncommunist coverage of energy and environmental policy...

In fact, USAID had "spent $24,000 on E&E subscriptions for its staff in 2024, and $20,000 the year before." According to Chait, that's less than $8 million per year. USAID had engaged in this conduct because its employees need to be well informed.

However it may have been intended, clinical language was sitting right there, right in Chait's opening paragraph.

An accusation of "delusional paranoia" can also be an example of colloquial language. But it's long past time for normal people to stop tolerating the recklessness—and the sheer stupidity—of the colloquial nutcase Musk.

In this instance, the recklessness and the stupidity jumped from one "nutcase" over to the other. And just for the record, no:

This idiocy didn't turn out to be THE BIGGEST SCANDAL OF THEM ALL, PERHAPS THE BIGGEST IN HISTORY! As a simple matter of fact, it wasn't a scandal at all—and the whole fandango had been built, once again, on the blindingly dimwitted way Musk will promote any claim he has heard if he dumbly finds it pleasing.

People need to stop tolerating this man's disordered behavior. Journalists need to spend more time speaking more frankly about this big colloquial nut, while also saying the names of his flyweight enablers at places like the Fox News Channel.

Briefly, let's be fair. "World's richest persons" may sometimes end up saying the darndest things and behaving in reckless ways. If memory serves, Howard Hughes—another rich person—became a bit nutty himself. 

Reportedly, it can happen! That said, consider this:

Along the way, Chait cited a report we'd never read or perused. We have no idea what the ultimate truth might be, but here's what Chait reported:

The process by which Musk came to his conclusions does not inspire great confidence. His expertise lies mostly outside public policy. He arrived in Washington, D.C., and quickly set out to prove that he could identify at least $1 trillion in annual waste and fraud, a figure wildly out of scale with the conclusions of every serious expert. He claims to be working 120 hours a week, yet is posting on X at a manic pace, sending more than 3,000 tweets a month, at all hours of the night. Musk has acknowledged that he has a prescription for ketamine, a drug that can cause unpredictable behavior if abused. Last year, The Wall Street Journal reported that people close to Musk worry that his recreational drug use—including “LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms,” according to the article—was driving his erratic behavior and could adversely affect his businesses. (His attorney accused the Journal of printing “false facts,” and told the paper that Musk is “regularly and randomly drug tested at SpaceX and has never failed a test.”)

Unless we're mistaken, Musk had originally said or seemed to say that he could wring at last two trillion dollars out of the annual budget. That claim even more out of touch with basic reality than was the claim Chait cited. 

That said, there it sat—a citation of Musk's manic behavior, linked up with that report in the Wall Street Journal.

We repeat! The report (from January 2024) appeared in the Wall Street Journal, not in some Blue American vessel. The report was long and quite detailed. Dual headline included, this is the way it began:

Musk Has Used Illegal Drugs, Worrying Leaders at Tesla and SpaceX
Some executives and board members fear the billionaire’s use of drugs—including LSD, cocaine, ecstasy, mushrooms and ketamine—could harm his companies

Elon Musk and his supporters offer several explanations for his contrarian views, unfiltered speech and provocative antics. They’re an expression of his creativity. Or the result of his mental-health challenges. Or fallout from his stress, or sleep deprivation.

In recent years, some executives and board members at his companies and others close to the billionaire have developed a persistent concern that there is another component driving his behavior: his use of drugs. 

And they fear the Tesla and SpaceX chief executive’s drug use could have major consequences not just for his health, but also the six companies and billions in assets he oversees, according to people familiar with Musk and the companies.

The world’s wealthiest person has used LSD, cocaine, ecstasy and psychedelic mushrooms, often at private parties around the world, where attendees sign nondisclosure agreements or give up their phones to enter, according to people who have witnessed his drug use and others with knowledge of it. Musk has previously smoked marijuana in public and [he] has said he has a prescription for the psychedelic-like ketamine. 

The report goes on and on from there, then it goes on some more. The report appeared in the Wall Street Journal, not in some bright blue locale.

We don't have the slightest idea what might be "wrong" with Musk. We do know that something is, in fact, unmistakably wrong with this manifest nutcase. We also know that the time is long past when people who are decent and sane should stop tolerating the clown shows staged by this overt nut.

Colloquially, Musk is an undisguised nut. So is his all-caps, nutcase commander.

These emperors are adorned in suits of see-through clothes.  The time has come when decent people need to stop being polite—journalistically deferential—about the stone-cold nuttiness driving this state of affairs.

"Something we were withholding made us weak?" We believe Robert Frost said that!

(JOURNALISTIC) MADNESS: When "Catturd" launched a bogus claim...

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2025

...Citizen Musk affirmed it: Is something "wrong" with Elon Musk? How about with Donald J. Trump?

To our eye and to our ear, Musk has the possible feel of a stone-cold nut, with the commander not far behind. Under current arrangements, major American journalists may be required to pretend that they haven't quite read the same vibe.

Yesterday, the world's richest person saved a couple of bucks on childcare as he appeared in the Oval Office. He was accompanied by the nominal president, but also by a 4-year-old boy who was initially thought to be one of Musk's "engineers."

The richest person proceeded to emit a lengthy string of claims.  Is something possibly "wrong' with Musk, even if only colloquially? How about with Glebova and Nelson, the "journalists" at the New York Post who assembled this (imitation of a) news report:

Musk defends mass DOGE firings, says the US should not ‘live in a bureaucracy’

Elon Musk defended the work of the Department of Government Efficiency Tuesday, saying the US should not be run by a “bureaucracy.”

Speaking next to President Trump in the Oval Office, the tech mogul argued he’s carrying out the commander-in-chief’s mandate by moving to fire thousands of government workers and cutting back on federal spending.

So the report began. In time, the journalists offered their account of Musk's various claims:

“We do find it sort of rather odd that there are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have, ostensibly a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” Musk claimed.

“Which is what happened to USAID. We’re just curious as to where it came from….I think the reality is that they’re getting wealthier at taxpayer expense.”

Musk did not provide any specific examples, though foreign contracting historically has been vulnerable to fraudulent self-dealing.

[...]

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, claimed that his team has found instances of 150 year old people collecting Social Security benefits and suspiciously rich federal workers who he suspects of self-dealing.

“Just a cursory examination of Social Security, and we got people in there that are 150 years old. Now, do you know anyone 150? I don’t, okay. They should be on the Guinness Book of World Records. They’re missing out,” Musk said.

“I think they’re probably dead. That’s my guess. Or they should be very famous. One of the two.”

The DOGE leader further highlighted what he said was a confounding issue slowing the pace of federal retirements.

“We were told that the most number of people that could retire possibly in a month is 10,000…because all the retirement paperwork is manual on paper. It’s manually calculated. They’re written down on a piece of paper. Then it goes down a mine,” he said.

“There’s a limestone mine where we store all the retirement paperwork… we will post some pictures afterwards…and the limiting factor is the speed at which the mine shaft elevator can move determines how many people can retire from the federal government.”

Musk also acknowledged that he can be wrong at times as he highlights examples of the alleged waste on X, which he owns—including recent criticism of $50 million in US-funded condoms for Gaza, which turned out to be Gaza province, Mozambique, rather than the Hamas-ruled Palestinian enclave.

“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect and should be corrected. so nobody’s going to bat 1,000. You know, we will make mistakes, but we’ll act quickly to correct any mistakes,” he said.

“I’m not sure we should be sending $50 million worth of condoms to anywhere, frankly…That is really an enormous number of condoms if you think about it. But you know, if it went to Mozambique instead of Gaza, I’m like, ‘Okay, that’s not as bad. But still, you know, why are we doing that?’

He said we shouldn't be shipping that many condoms anywhere! That's how the "news report" ended.

Is something wrong with Musk and Trump? For now, let's start with the messaging tandem turned loose by the New York Post—with the way they chose to report Musk's various declarations.

Over at the New York Times, Haberman, Schleifer and Kanno-Youngs also filed a news report about Musk's presentation. Their offering sits on today's front page, but their report starts with words of warning, right from the headline on down:

Appearing With Trump, Musk Makes Broad Claims of Federal Fraud Without Proof

The billionaire Elon Musk said in an extraordinary Oval Office appearance on Tuesday that he was providing maximum transparency in his government cost-cutting initiative, but offered no evidence for his sweeping claims that the federal bureaucracy had been corrupted by cheats and officials who had approved money for “fraudsters.”

Answering questions from the media for the first time since his arrival in Washington to run the Department of Government Efficiency, Mr. Musk stood next to the Resolute Desk and asserted that his work was in the interest of the public and democracy. President Trump sat behind the desk, chiming in with approval as he let the world’s richest man expound for roughly 30 minutes on the rationale for the drastic overhaul of the federal bureaucracy.

The goal is to “restore democracy,” Mr. Musk said. “If the bureaucracy’s in charge, then what meaning does democracy actually have?”

Among Mr. Musk’s claims, which he offered without providing evidence, was that some officials at the now-gutted U.S. Agency for International Development had been taking “kickbacks.” He said that “quite a few people” in the bureaucracy somehow had “managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth while they are in that position,” without explaining how he had made that assessment. He later claimed that some recipients of Social Security checks were as old as 150.

And so on from there. First in the headline, then all through the report, the Times reporters stressed the fact that Musk had "offered no evidence" in support of his various claims, even as the nominal president was "chiming in with approval." 

Citizen Musk hadn't "explained how he made" his assessments, the Times reporters noted. He had advanced an array of claims "which he offered without providing evidence."  

He had made "broad claims without proof."

Over at the New York Post, Glebova and Nelson—perhaps like Trump—had apparently failed to notice such omissions. They had also failed to notice the fuzziness of some of the fellow's claims—for example, the claim about the number of people who are able to retire each month from the federal government.

The gentleman said the number was only ten thousand—rather, he said that's what he'd been told. He didn't say if he'd fact-checked the thing he said he'd been told. He did seem to imply that this state of affairs represented a major problem—was part of a "confounding issue.".

Only ten thousand per month! Multiplying by twelve, that would work out to 120,000 such retirements in the course of a single year.

That said, how many federal workers want to retire in the course of a year? We can't say with total certainty, nor can we report the extent to which the situation Musk described creates a major problem.

We can tell you this:

The limestone mine Musk almost seemed to have discovered was reported, in great detail, all the way back in 2014, in this detailed news report by the Washington Post. Musk's team had quite possibly broken this story by reading an eleven-year-old mainstream news report! 

(For Sarah Rumpf's report on this matter, you can just click this.)

As a four-year-old crawled over his neck, Musk reported what he said he'd been told about this confounding issue. At this site, we don't know if he was ever told any such thing. Also, has he ever tried to determine if the number he says he's been given represents some sort of "confounding issue?"

We don't have the slightest idea, and neither does Donald J. Trump. That said, other claims and suggestions by Musk seem to be baldly inaccurate (or worse), a fact the writers at the New York Post managed to walk on by.

Consider again this eye-catching claim, reported by the Post:

"There are quite a few people in the bureaucracy who have, ostensibly, a salary of a few hundred thousand dollars but somehow managed to accrue tens of millions of dollars in net worth." 

That sounds like a troubling claim! That said, what lies behind it?  

For starters, understand this. This statement by Musk was triggered by a question from the seated commander. As you can see in the third minute of this CNN videotape, the nominal president made this early request of the world's richest person:

TRUMP (2/11/25): Could you mention some of the things that your team has found, some of the crazy numbers, including the woman that walked away with about thirty million?

MUSK: Right...

As you can see, it was in response to that request that Musk offered a fuzzier version of an earlier bogus claim. 

As you can learn at Mediaite, Trump's request seemed to refer to an earlier bungled claim about Samantha Power, former head of USAID. We refer to an online claim by the mental giant named "Catturd"—a claim which Musk had seemed to reinforce in his typical reckless way.

Full disclosure! Major news orgs may be inclined to avoid fact checks of such claims, knowing that any discussion of such bogus claims will only result in their wider promulgation.

That said, Forbes fact-checked and rejected this claim when Catturd and Musk advanced it. (Headline: "Elon Musk Pushes False Claim Ex-USAID Chief Earned $23 Million.") 

That said, so what? Yesterday, there sat the president of a failing nation, asking to hear that song again. In response, Musk offering a fuzzier version of the discredited hit. 

Meanwhile, are there any real examples of federal employees who end up as inexplicable multimillionaires? If there are, Musk has never provided them. We know of no obvious reason to assume that he ever will.

All in all, the stupid sh*t went on and on from this apparent nutcase. As has been noted again and again, his initial claim about the $50 million in condoms-to-Gaza had been clownishly wrong. 

Regarding those condoms, Musk now said they'd been sent to Gaza province in Mozambique, not to the Gaza strip. That also seems to be wrong—but over at the New York Post, Glebova and Nelson ended their pseudo-report with that adjusted assertion by Musk, letting readers believe that the wondrous fellow had only been partially wrong.

Final question: 

Has this fellow really discovered "that some recipients of Social Security checks are as old as 150?" We know of no reason to assume that he has, but that claim would be easy to document. 

Does any such situation exist? Such claims can get all around the world before such questions can even get asked. Do you believe there are any such recipients? Do you think Musk will ever be asked?

Is something wrong with Elon Musk? To our eye and ear, the reckless person in question qualifies (colloquially) as a possible bit of an apparent nutcase. 

This afternoon, we'll link you to the Wall Steet Journal's detailed report about his apparent drug use in the fairly recent past. To our eye and ear, something does seem to be wrong with this reckless man, though we have no idea what it is.

To our eye and ear, the man in question qualifies (colloquially) as a possible nutcase. On a journalistic basis, yesterday's performance in the Oval was as an imitation of life.

It was an imitation of rational life. So too with the "news report" in the New York Post.

That said, this kind of (journalistic) madness is general over the culture. Over at the Fox News Channel, is Greg Gutfeld involved in some such form of (colloquial) madness?

It's as we noted in yesterday's report. Last Friday night, he seemed to make an array of very strange claims about the work of USAID—about its work around the globe but also here at home.

He was surrounded by four helpmates. Tomorrow, we'll say their names.

After his nightly dose of ugly "jokes," Gutfeld made an array of peculiar claims in his "monologue." After he finished his oration, it was time for the Stepfords to speak.

What did these four imitations say? Tomorrow, we'll continue with our portrait of the "night assault" on the dying culture of our own sacred Troy.

That's what we'll do tomorrow. Yesterday, Donald J. Trump said this:

Tell us about that woman again! Tell us what Catturd said!

Donald J. Trump lodged that request. Musk did his best to comply.

Tomorrow: Each panel member agreed!


TUESDAY: "Nuttier than you even think?"

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2025

Ever so slowly they turn? Is something (clinically) wrong with President Trump? Is it possible that some such state of affairs playing a role in our politics?

We think it's a blindingly obvious question, but we can't offer some such assessment. Then again, are some of the nation's lagging indicators slowly starting to turn?

In this morning's report, we cited Gail Collins. In her current Conversation at the New York Times, this is what she said:

When Trump announced that he thought the United States should take over Gaza and “own it,” that struck me [as] another deeply scary sign that our president is … just nuts. (Collins' punctuation)

To our ear, we wondered if we were hearing a change in the weather. 

Later, such words as "insane" and "madness" were on display on last evening's Last Word, then again on today's Morning Joe. (For "utterly insane," click here.)

Have we started hearing such language more often? Here was James Carville, this very day, on Jim Acosta's new podcast, discussing President Trump:

CARVILLE (2/11/25): People come up right now. My sense is that, people are just like, "What’s going on? Can you explain this to me?"

ACOSTA: Yeah. Yeah.

CARVILLE: You know, "I'm confused. I never—" And the truth of it is, he’s mad.

ACOSTA: Yeah.

CARVILLE: And I— I don’t want to—

ACOSTA: He’s flailing—

CARVILLE: And it's internal stuff. I’ve heard that, you know, secondhand—people that have been to the White House. It’s more, "Okay, it’s nuttier than you even think."

ACOSTA: Yeah.

CARVILLE: Okay, it’s— Anything that you hear— This is secondhand information. Some of it is gossip. But pretty reliable people are coming out of there saying, “Man, you don't believe this!”

"This is secondhand information," Carville said. "Some of it is gossip." 

Beyond that, we don't know what Carville meant, or didn't mean, by his choice of words. Also, we don't know what people have specifically said to Carville.

For ourselves, we aren't in a position to do anything but wonder about this possible state of affairs. Also, introducing such considerations into the discourse is a challenging proposition.  We've always recommended sympathy—pity, even—for the loss of human potential

That said, to watch the tape, you can just click here. Ever so slowly they turn?

Regarding the possibility of (clinical or colloquial) "madness," it's a bit like changes in the New England weather. If you want the latest example, you don't have to wait around long.

In fairness, the conduct can sometimes be comically daft. Consider the change in the weather announced by Pete Hegseth. We'll let the BBC roll out the basics:

Hegseth orders Fort Liberty be renamed Fort Bragg

US Defence Secretary Pete Hegseth has ordered military base Fort Liberty, located in North Carolina, be reverted to Fort Bragg.

The order contravenes a measure backed in Congress that led to the renaming of the army base in 2023, which was part of a wider initiative to rename military installations commemorating figures linked to the Confederacy.

Hegseth said the base will now be named after a World War Two veteran, Pte Roland L Bragg, rather than its original namesake, Gen Braxton Bragg, a Confederate soldier who lost a number of battles in the American Civil War.

"That's right, Bragg is back," Hegseth said during the signing, in a video posted on his social media account.

And so on from there.

"Bragg is back," he comically said. Here's the basic lay of the land:

Back when he was still at Fox, Hegseth hated the name change. It was part of the screeching regime known as "woke."

Now he's changed the name back! Except he's agreed to change the official account of who the name refers to!

In other words:

The initial "wokeness" was correct. He wasn't willing to roll the initial decision all the way back.

Solomon never split the baby. Today, you're allowed to enjoy a mordant chuckle:

Comically, Hegseth has!

(JOURNALISTIC) MADNESS: USAID was trying to topple Trump?

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2025

Can that really be what he said? To our ear, Gail Collins is flirting with (conceptual) danger in this week's Conversation with Bret Stephens.

To our ear, Collins is skating out onto very thin ice. By the established rules of the game, she's not supposed to skate there.

Briefly, let's set the scene! As the center-left Collins begins her dangerous skate, the center-right Stephens has already offered these thoughts about where Trump seems to be going:

Trump Is On the Move

[...]

Stephens: He scares me. There are days when I wake up and think: If this goes on like this for four years, or even four months, we’re going to be living in an unrecognizable republic—one in which lickspittle Republican legislators and cabinet members rubber-stamp every crazy Trump idea, federal court decisions are simply ignored by the executive branch, Elon Musk creates a Department of Personal Efficiency (DOPE) that tracks and scores your every move and a booming economy keeps a majority of voters indifferent to the collapse of civic and constitutional norms. We saw that model play out in the early years of Vladimir Putin’s dictatorship in Russia and Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s rule in Turkey.

Oof! As the colloquy continued, Stephens offered some nuance. Eventually, Collins laced up her skates:

Bret: The federal government isn’t some tech start-up where you move fast and break things.

Gail: You know I never argue foreign policy, Bret, but when Trump announced that he thought the United States should take over Gaza and “own it,” that struck me less as an issue of international affairs than another deeply scary sign that our president is … just nuts. [Collins' punctuation]

At this site, sirens started to blare. 

To our ear, Collins was tiptoeing toward a spot on the ice where she knows she mustn't go. With all deliberate tentativeness, she seemed to be wondering if the commander could possibly be clinically disordered—if he might be "nuts" in a way which isn't simply colloquial.

That's how it almost sounded to us. Also, it sounded like Collins knew that she was skating onto a dangerous part of the lake—that she knew she had to carefully couch her words.

Is something "wrong" with Donald J. Trump? No really—could something be wrong with this person?

As we noted all last week, we sometimes speak of mental illness—of "mental disorder"—in colloquial, metaphorical ways. Then too, there are the clinical uses of such terms—and the rules of this game are quite clear:

Our journalists are allowed to speak of literal "mental illness" when discussing types of street crime. By long tradition, they are not allowed to speak in such ways when discussing political figures.

This rule has been in place since (at least) the 1960s. To our ear, Collins was skating toward a place where the ice starts to get rather thin.

This brings us to the astonishing case of a strangely disordered "cable news" star. Twice nightly, on a pair of heavily watched "cable news" shows, he serves as a messaging agent for the corporate entity known as the Fox News Channel.

He's sixty years old—but he's stunningly juvenile, and he's stupendously scripted. In fairness to him, it should also be said that he's extremely well paid.

Is something "wrong" with this person? We speak, of course, of the Fox News Channel's Greg Gutfeld, star of the nightly, primetime TV show, Gutfeld! and co-host of The Five. For today, we'll be ignoring the astonishing coarseness of his nightly presentations. Instead, let's consider the journalistic madness in which he engaged last week.

We return to last Friday night's messaging program. More specifically, we return to his messaging that night about USAID. 

Gutfeld started out as a bit of a NeverTrumper. As of today, he performs as Donald J. Trump's most long-winded and fervent supporter. 

Was Suzanne Scott forced to give him the word at one point? We hope to return to that question this week. For today, we want to show you the full extent of the "monologue" with which he opened last Friday night's Gutfeld! program.

Yes, he actually said the things you see transcribed below! We include the opening part of the monologue—the part of the presentation we included in yesterday's report.

We showed you part of what he said. Below, you see the full transcript:

GUTFELD (2/7/25): All right! To the monologue!

So the Trump administration laid off nearly all of the USAID agency staff, reducing the number from 10,000 worldwide to just under 300.

I know!

[SCATTERED APPLAUSE]

You're welcome!

But oddly, the USAID beneficiaries abroad don't seem to be the ones complaining. The foreign heads of state are so quiet. And yet it's the NGOs crying over the fact that their yearslong scams might be toast. 

And all of this is happening because DOGE has exposed a pile of programs funded by USAID to foster gender and trans propaganda in foreign countries—countries where such things don't seem to benefit stability. Because nothing will bring a Muslim country together like drag queens reading the Koran to kids.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

But that's the point. You have to destroy the world to build a new one where men can watch girls pee in locker rooms. 

Now, I've said before that the racial and gender conflict incited in America was designed to keep a unified population from focusing on the bigger problems, like crime, immigration, economy and, of course, corruption. But it wasn't to overthrow a government. It was designed to preserve the government—building a moat around its power. 

And so as we learn that USAID was creating instability abroad, we see these same dirty tricks coming home. Because once you find yourself with a populist president who wasn't the elite choice, instability must be created artificially. Which means introducing the endless combustion of identity politics.

Elevate one's identity among others and you create conflict among groups, and there goes populist unity. People turn on themselves. What seemed to be an exported strategy to handicapped third world nations returned to where it started, like a sexually confused boomerang.

So imagine if we looked at America as a foreign country when Trump won. USAID did! You had a populist president, not an establishment puppet. What followed? Organized and immediate protests—race gender, climate, the three horsemen of funded, organized dissent. 

It was a color revolution, funded by people who pay taxes. Suddenly, you had trained agitators in the street with fresh signs and robust crowds and fueling the media that pushes incendiary hoaxes.

Add to that a crusade against so-called misinformation to empower censorship. Sound familiar? Sounds like everything USAID did  in other countries.

Now maybe we didn't mind USAID before. Sure, they toppled governments overseas, but that wouldn't happen here. Now, by shining a light on what they and our government is doing, we find that they did try to destroy a populist movement for being a challenge to their power, with identity politics as a weapon. It was divide and conquer.

No wonder the left is freaking out. They weren't just exporting chaos to the world. They were growing it here and forcing us to smoke it. 

Yes, the fellow actually said those things--and the quartet of stooges gathered around him rushed to agree with every word he had said. To watch the fellow make those remarks, you can just click here.

Is something "wrong" with this man-—with a 60-year-old man who mocks 80-year-old women, every single night of the week, for being too fat, or for being sexually unattractive, or for having used too much Botox down through the many years?

(Who asked, at least three separate times, if Hunter Biden had started "banging" or [BLEEP]ing" first lady Jill Biden yet? And yes, he actually did that, on at least three separate programs.)

Is something wrong this undisguised imitation of (journalistic) life? For today, let's get clear on what this corporate messaging agent actually seems to have said on last Friday night's program.

Were we simply hearing things, or did this nutcase actually say it? Did he actually say these things about the work of USAID?

Things this nutcase seems to have said:
USAID has been "toppling governments overseas." (No specific example was cited.) 

Here at home, USAID also tried to destroy the MAGA movement. ("Did try to destroy a populist movement for being a challenge to their power.")

Inevitably, USAID had been doing these things "to build a new [world] where men can watch girls pee in locker rooms." 

Did this nutcase corporate messaging agent actually say those things? Yes, we know—it does seem hard to believe!

But you can watch the videotape yourself. To our ear, it's hard to deny that those are the actual things this corporate nutcase seems to have said, as a quartet of corporate Stepfords awaited their chance to agree.

Full disclosure! We've edited out a few of the coarser remarks with which he littered his manifesto. Time permitting, we'll transcribe those edited remarks before the week is done.

For today, we simply wanted you to see what this fellow actually said. You may assume that we've invented those transcribed remarks. For that reason, we again provide the link by which you can watch him making his presentation.

If you choose to click that link and watch, you'll be watching an "imitation of life." You'll be seeing an imitation of journalism, of human discourse itself.  And when the four Stepfords start praising this nutcase for his torrent of strange remarks, you'll weep about the endless potential within our species for disordered if well-paid behavior.

Is something "wrong" with this messaging agent? This week, we're staying within the colloquial realm. We aren't attempting to ask about the possibility of clinical disorder.

That said, is something wrong with this angry, coarse person? Colloquially, we'd say the answer is yes. As the week proceeds, we'll show you the "sources" for this fellow's astounding remarks—and we'll being you to your knees as we transcribe the remarks which followed as the four Stepfords joined in.

This sort of thing transpires around the clock on the Fox News Channel. As it does, the major stars of our own Blue America agree to avert their gaze.

Rachel Maddow won't talk about this. The New York Times won't report this behavior. The children at Mediaite somehow manage to look away, even as they record the nightly fights on CNN's 10 p.m. program. 

This too is a type of mental disorder. And no—a very large, major modern nation can't expect to survive this way.

To our ear, Collins is flirting with a clinical suggestion about the current commander. Concerning the Fox News Channel's messaging agent, we'll simply suggest that he's deeply engaged in journalistic madness.

Rather, he's engaged in a rather obvious form of pseudo-journalistic madness. It's met by total silence from our elites in Blue America as a "night assault" proceeds—an assault we've already lost.

USAID was trying to topple Trump! Let us quote from the glorious Hawthorne:

 “Rappaccini! Rappaccini! and is this the upshot of your experiment!”

Tomorrow: Stepfords, come on down!


MONDAY: San Mateo wins Super Bowl!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2025

Then too, we're embarrassed: San Mateo, California won the Super Bowl—again!

We're almost tired of all the winning. Let's count the wins again.

We start with the man called Terrific—with quarterback Tom Brady. The pride of San Mateo's Serra High went to ten Super Bowls, emerging with seven wins.

In three of those wins, Julian Edelman served as a star receiver. He was MVP of Super Bowl LIII. We'll let the leading authority fill you in:

After high school, Edelman spent a year attending the College of San Mateo. There, he threw for 1,312 yards and 14 touchdowns and rushed for a school-record 1,253 yards and 17 touchdowns. 

Edelman was a quarterback then. Back on the Serra High beat, Lynn Swann had already won Super Bowl XIV with the Steelers, back in the early days.

With that, we move ahead to our coaching tree; we'll start with Dick Vermeil. He was the young head coach at Hillsdale High when we ourselves were a mere student at brand-new, down the road, arch rival Aragon High.

The young man moved on to UCLA, then to the NFL. As head coach of the Eagles, he actually lost Super Bowl XV. 

Decades later, he returned as head coach of the Rams, winning Super Bowl XXXIV.

Along the way, College of San Mateo (CSM) became known as the "junior college of coaches."

As the leading authority notes, Bill Walsh played quarterback at CSM for two years, then went on to win three Super Bowls—XVI, XIX and XXIII—as head coach of the 49ers.

John Madden won Super Bowl XI as head coach of the Raiders. What explains his coaching success? The leading authority tells us:

A football star in high school, Madden played one season at the College of San Mateo, in 1954, before he was given a football scholarship to the University of Oregon.

Madden grew up in Daly City, at the northern end of the county. His childhood friend, Coach John Robinson, graduated from Serra High. As head coach of the Rams, he went to two NFC title games, never reached the Super Bowl.

(He did win a national championship as head coach at USC.)

Finally, let's not forget Sean Payton. As head coach of the Saints, he won Super Bowl XLIV. He didn't stick around very long, but the authority tells us this:

Payton was born in San Mateo, California, and raised in Naperville, Illinois.

San Mateans have almost grown tired of all the Super Bowl wins. Yesterday, the sun-splashed city won again as the blowout loss by the Chiefs stifled a great deal of highly offensive, "Who's the GOAT?" talk concerning Mr. Brady.

We do have one problem in the county. That problem involves Serra High.

A certain "cable news" star also went to Serra. We'll be discussing his latest astounding performance all through the course of the week.

It's hard to know how so much (ugly) journalistic disorder could have emerged from such a sunny land. In fairness, who's to say that the team he has agreed to serve hasn't already secured a win in the fight to end a certain 236-year experiment?

The other team is playing for keeps, or so it appears at this time. It seems that this Serra grad has signed on to work for that team—and in fairness, the money is good.

Forgive us for wasting your time with this crap; nostalgia makes its demands. We'll get back on track tomorrow.

That said:

To our eye and ear, this fellow's undisguised (journalistic) lunacy is part of a "night attack." Over here in Blue America, we've all agreed to avert our gaze from what this imitation of life has been doing in recent years helped along by his circle of friends.

We've all agreed to avert our gaze from the sheer stupidity and from the nightly ugliness. In this way, have we Blue Americans already earned our way out? 

Our team is vastly self-impressed. Borrowing from Professor Knox, a "night attack" is underway. Have we already lost?


(JOURNALISTIC) MADNESS: A nutcase advanced the night assault!

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2025

Nobody else said a word: It's hard to capture the madness of what was said last Friday night.

It's hard to capture the madness of the (fully predictable) silence with which that madness was met.

The first madness belongs to Red America; the second madness belongs to us Blues. Camus described the whole fandango in the excerpt from The Plague which we started reprinting last year.

On this morning's Morning Joe, George Conway said that a certain 236-year experiment may be nearing its end. It's hard to capture the madness of the behaviors which occasioned that sensible assessment by Conway.

Also, it's hard to capture the incomprehension of those who say that Conway's assessments hails from the funny farm. in our view, that incomprehension is stunningly deep, but it's also fully human.

(Conway's full presentation can be seen at the Morning Joe site. Click here, then click on this: "George Conway: J.D. Vance is telling us something we should've already known.")

With that, we return to last Friday night, to the latest installment in the night assault. To an imitation of life:

Last Friday night, Greg Gutfeld started his prime time "cable news" show in the normal "Friday night" way. He introduced a panel comprised of four Stepfords. Then he told a few jokes.

The string of jokes began at 10:01 p.m. Mercifully, it was over by 10:06. At that point, it was time for the undisguised madness to start. The madness started like this:

All right! To the monologue!

"To the monologue," he cried. To our ear, it sounded a bit like To the Lighthouse.

By clicking this link, you can see the way the monologue started. Warning—at this point, you can't begin to see the extent of the madness this hireling would offer this night:

GUTFELD (2/7/25): All right! To the monologue!

So the Trump administration laid off nearly all of the USAID agency staff, reducing the number from 10,000 worldwide to just under 300.

I know!

[SCATTERED APPLAUSE]

You're welcome!

But oddly, the USAID beneficiaries abroad don't seem to be the ones complaining. The foreign heads of state are so quiet. And yet it's the NGOs crying over the fact that their yearslong scams might be toast. 

And all of this is happening because DOGE has exposed a pile of programs funded by USAID to foster gender and trans propaganda in foreign countries—countries where such things don't seem to benefit stability. Because nothing will bring a Muslim country together like drag queens reading the Koran to kids.

[AUDIENCE LAUGHTER]

But that's the point. You have to destroy the world to build a new one where men can watch girls pee in locker rooms. 

That's the way the madness started. Yes, that's what he said. Rather, that's the way the madness—and the night assault—began on this one particular Friday night.

As we've noted in the past, Greg Gutfeld is 60 years old, and he comes from a sunny land. He may believe the things he says. It's possible that he doesn't. 

It's possible that he doesn't. But last Friday night, on his prime time "cable news" program, the astonishing picture he was going to paint started out like that.

His full claim was an imitation of life. It involved intimations of something resembling a madness, even the possibility—though only the possibility—of a clinical "disorder." 

What this fellow would go on to say was also a night assault on the foundations of the alleged American enterprise. Despite the wide reach of his TV show, no one in Blue America was going to say a single word about what he said this night, or about the ardent, stunningly stupid reactions from his array of guests.

What did Gutfeld go on to say? To the extent that he was working from sources, who or what were those sources?

Who were the quartet of Stepfords who took turns agreeing with his presentation? We'll explore all those questions this week, but you've now seen the way he began.

In fairness, he started with a basically accurate statement. Very early that very morning, Reuters had reported this:

Trump administration to keep only 294 USAID staff out of over 10,000 globally, sources say

President Donald Trump's administration plans to keep fewer than 300 staff at the U.S. Agency for International Development out of the agency's worldwide total of more than 10,000, four sources told Reuters on Thursday.

Washington's primary humanitarian aid agency has been a target of a government reorganization program spearheaded by businessman Elon Musk, a close Trump ally, since the Republican president took office on January 20.

The four sources familiar with the plan said only 294 staff at the agency would be allowed to keep their jobs, including only 12 in the Africa bureau and eight in the Asia bureau.

In this report from the previous evening, the Associated Press had reported much the same thing.

The sitting commander, Donald J. Trump, had ordered a massive reduction in the work force at USAID! The statement of this fact produced light applause from the Gutfeld! studio audience. 

As it turned out, that's when the madness started. It started with what seemed to be a set of odd remarks.

According to Gutfeld, Elon Musk and his crew at DOGE had "exposed a pile of programs funded by USAID in foreign countries." Gutfeld seemed to say that these programs had been designed "to foster gender and trans propaganda."

His apparent insinuations went on from there. In these first remarks, the TV host seemed to suggest that USAID had (allegedly) sponsored these (alleged) programs in order to undermine the "stability" of those foreign countries. 

Eventually, it would become clear that that was exactly what the Fox News Channel star was alleging—though the craziness of his full allegation went several light-years past that.

"Nothing will bring a Muslim country together like drag queens reading the Koran to kids," the gentleman said at this point. For the record, he would make no specific claim, at any point, about any such USAID program in any specific country.

"Nothing will bring a Muslim country together like drag queens reading the Koran to kids!" And then, he turned to what would be only one part of his claim. According to Gutfeld, this:

DOGE had exposed a pile of programs funded by USAID to foster gender and trans propaganda in foreign countries. 

Such program don't benefit stability in the countries in question. But that was the point. 

"That was the point," the gentleman said! And then, he added this:

You have to destroy the world to build a new one where men can watch girls pee in locker rooms. 

Is that what USAID has been doing in foreign countries? Has the agency been undermining stability in those countries, with the goal of "building a new world where men can watch girls pee in locker rooms?"

Already, it sounded like that's what he was saying. Trust us—at this point, we haven't begun to approach the full crazy of what this possible nutcase now said.

Soon, four helpmates would take turns affirming the messaging this corporate star had advanced. We'll be saying their names this week, but it won't make a lick of difference.

Full disclosure:

The fellow of whom we speak started out anti-Trump! In this June 2023 profile, the New York Times almost seemed to describe a meeting in which the Fox News Channel's Suzanne Scott told him he'd have to shape up.

We'll try to get to all that this week. Meanwhile, please understand this:

You still don't have the slightest idea how crazy last Friday night got.

Is Gutfeld gripped by some form of mental illness—that is to say, by a "mental disorder?" How about people like Musk and Vance? How about someone like President Trump?

Are such people gripped by some clinically diagnosable "mental disorder?" By tradition, that's a perfectly sensible question. But as with history, so too here:

History is written by the victors. So is the question of who was gripped by a "mental disorder."

Meanwhile, how about us Blues? How about our journalistic and academic elites?

Are we perhaps gripped by a mental disorder as we continue to pretend that none of this has been taking place on the Fox News Channel? As we agree to avert our gaze? As we refuse to report?

In our view, it's just as we have told you. Camus described the syndrome in question in his allegorical novel, La Peste (The Plague)

Before him, so did Hans Christian Andersen, who described the citizens of a fictional empire who were somehow unable to see what was happening right there before them.

Their emperor had a new suit of clothes! Because we humans aren't built for this line of work, citizens of that mythical empire were unable to see or to speak. 

What did Gutfeld go on to say? How did his helpers respond?

We'll try to cover all that this week. That said, did Norman O. Browm get it right all the way back in the 1960s? Also, was Friday night's TV show part of a "night assault," not unlike the ancient assault which brought an end to sacred Troy?

A manifestly angry fellow launched last Friday's assault. Over here, in Blue America, no one said a word. 

As it has been for decades now, everybody seemed to know that they mustn't see or speak. Are we humans built for this work? Has an experiment failed?

Tomorrow: USAID's domestic plot!


SUNDAY: Is there some such thing as a "sociopath?"

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025

Inquiring minds ought to ask: Kevin Drum, a rational person, is puzzled by Donald J. Trump. 

In the current instance, he's puzzled by an executive order from Trump which could or would have the effect of wiping out medical research.

He voices his puzzlement in the post excerpted below. In turn, some of Kevin's commenters are puzzled by Kevin's puzzlement:

Trump wants to wipe out medical research

[...]

This may or may not happen, or the draft [executive order] might get watered down. But the possibility that anybody is even thinking this is alarming as hell.

And why? What grudge does Trump hold against the entire medical research community? Is this just part of the whole "Fauci is a murderer" thing? Or the more general "tyrants forced us to wear masks" thing? Or the FDA approving the deadliest vaccine ever created?

Or is this a personal Trump vendetta that I'm not up to speed on?

Kevin doesn't exactly know. We don't exactly know either!

At any rate, Kevin seems to be puzzled by the commander's latest action. As we've noted, Kevin's a highly rational person—in general, a good thing to be.

Kevin is a rational person, but no one's fully rational. Also, some people are caught up in "mental disorders" which may make them much less "rational" than most others are. 

To wit:

As we've often noted, the largest study of its kind found that something like 6.5% of adult men can be diagnosed as sociopaths. Or at least, that's what it said in a report in Psychology Today about that largest study.

(Elsewhere, the leading authority on "mental disorder" generally agrees with that number.)

Of course, we all know there's no such thing as a "sociopath!" We all know there's no such thing because there's no such clinical term!

That said, there are accepted clinical terms which are said to (generally) correlate with that colloquial term. Also, there are endless lists of the symptoms and behaviors associated with this alleged "mental disorder." 

(Please don't say "mental illness!")

Within our highly limited discourse, our journalists speak freely about "mental illness" when they're dealing with certain types of "street crime." By virtually universal agreement, they never speak about "mental illness" when discussing actions taken by major political figures.

That said, is it possible that some of the people within our political and pseudo-journalistic elites are "sociopaths?"  For the record, we know that isn't possible, for the reason already stated. But is it possibly possible in the less persnickety sense?

Starting tomorrow, we're going to spend the week discussing that general question. We're going to focus on the astonishing things we saw Greg Gutfeld say on Friday night's Gutfeld! TV show.

As Gutfeld made his astounding remarks, four of the standard stooges gazed silently off into space. But the journalistic lunacy of what this undisguised nutcase said calls for detailed attention. 

As it says in an old book, Attention must be paid! It's a type of attention the New York Times and MSNBC have agreed they will never provide.

Is something "wrong" with Donald J. Trump, or perhaps with someone like Gutfeld? Could that possibly explain the behaviors Kevin seems to find puzzling?

Starting tomorrow: The astonishing things said on "cable news" this past Friday night

As described by Rhymin' Simon: Paul Simon once described a person who couldn't stop lashing out. 

In the famous song, the songwriter is plainly sympathetic to the person in question. The lyrics which eventually explain the unfortunate behavior go like this:

The Boxer

[...]

In the clearing stands a boxer
And a fighter by his trade
And he carries the reminders
Of every glove that laid him down
Or cut him till he cried out
In his anger and his shame
"I am leaving, I am leaving"
But the fighter still remains

In our view, it's one of the greatest, and most beautiful, of the era's popular songs.

Does the current version of Donald J. Trump "carry the reminder / Of every glove that laid him down / Or cut him," from his (apparently troubled) childhood on?

We can't tell you that. That said, it seems that some people can't stop lashing out "in their anger and their shame." Songwriters have described the syndrome—mental health specialists too.

Power should be withheld from such people. After that, as with Simon's song, we'd recommend pity for the loss of human potential in the person so afflicted.

SATURDAY: USAID around the world...

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 8, 2025

...as described on the Fox News Channel: What does USAID do in Latin America?

All in all, we have no idea. The same can be said of most people. Triggered by the ongoing attempt to terminate the federal agency, the Associated Press recently published a news report on that very question.

The report appeared on Wednesday, February 5. Headline included, the report began like this:

USAID is going away. Here’s what it’s been doing in South America

The dismantling of the U.S. Agency for International Development will deliver a major blow to efforts including humanitarian assistance in Colombia, conservation efforts in Brazil and coca eradication in Peru—South American countries that have been a priority for the support.

Even if some foreign aid resumes after the 90-day suspension ordered by President Donald Trump, many USAID-backed projects focus on areas he has derided as ideological: climate change, biodiversity and minority and women’s rights, so several recipients fear their projects are now dead.

So began the AP's lengthy report. Like almost everyone else, we don't have the kind of personal knowledge which lets us assess its accuracy or its overall quality.

That said, the article described a range of initiatives the agency has supported. Below, you see an account of USAID's work in our major country. You can read the full AP report simply by clicking here:

Trump told reporters Monday that shutting down USAID “should have been done a long time ago.” Billionaire Elon Musk, who is leading government cost reduction in the new administration, said the agency was run by “radical left lunatics.”

In Brazil, USAID’s largest initiative is the Partnership for the Conservation of Amazon Biodiversity, which focuses on conservation and improving livelihoods for Indigenous peoples and other forest communities. About two-thirds of the world’s largest rainforest is in Brazil.

One Brazilian organization USAID has supported is the Amazon-based Roraima Indigenous Council, which operates in 35 areas including the territory of the Yanomami tribe, totaling some 157,000 square kilometers (60,600 square miles), larger than Greece. This direct support is representative of a shift at USAID over the last few years, to prioritize funding grassroots organizations.

In a region vulnerable to illegal gold mining and drug-trafficking, the Roraima Indigenous Council is using the money for improved family farming, adapting to climate change and income generation for women.

Now everything is at risk, Edinho Macuxi, the tuxaua (leader) of the Indigenous Council, told the AP. In recent weeks, his organization, which represents some 60,000 people, laid off workers and canceled activities due to lack of funds...

[...]

In recent years, USAID also supported arguably the most successful sustainable resource effort in the Amazon, the managed fishing of pirarucu, the region’s famously giant fish. The U.S. funds built a slaughterhouse where fishers could work during the legal catch. Indigenous and riverine communities helped recover what was an endangered species, at the same time getting income and food.

In 2024, USAID disbursed $22.6 million to Brazil. Over half, close to $14 million, went to general environmental protection, with the Amazon, which stores crucial amounts of carbon from the atmosphere, as a top priority.

In the case of Brazil alone, that was $22.6 million shoveled right out the door!

Was that a good use of federal money, or was it instead the latest example of "waste, fraud and abuse?" Are the programs in question well managed? Are American interests served by these efforts? Are the humanitarian efforts actually successful on the local level?

It's imaginable that opinions about such questions will differ. In a slightly more rational world, the lengthy AP report could be a starting point for a sane discussion of such issues, which have suddenly come to the fore in the realm of Musk and Trump.

Imaginably, that could happen in a more rational world. Our world isn't like that. 

In theory, a news report like that could trigger a serious discussion. Today, we thought we'd show you what viewers of our nation's most-watched "cable new" program have been told, in recent days, about the work of USAID in the region in question.

We start with the 60-year-old Greg Gutfeld, speaking on the most-watched TV show in all "cable news." He cleared his throat last Wednesday evening, then emitted this:

GUTFELD (2/5/25): ...You cannot fix USAID any more than you could have fixed Joe Biden, and it is the same problem. You have a corrupt, broken product operating under the guise of empathy and compassion.

You know, as USAID promotes gender equality in Madagascar, they did help fund the Wuhan virus and they killed 15 million people. You can't fix Joe, you can't fix USAID, yet they will deny the corruption to the very end, and this is the problem when a single ideology contaminates an entire system.

All in all, it didn't sound good! The gentleman continued:

GUTFELD (continuing directly): The media is 90% to 95% liberal—there is data for that—and what did you get? You get a hoax matrix that covered for Joe and tried to destroy Trump. 

Then you have the academia—90 to 95% of the faculty is liberal. Maybe you can find one Republican per major department, and then what do you have? Rabid anti-west activism. Pro-terror activism. USAID is almost uniformly peopled by one party, and we are paying for it. That's the difference.

At that point, Dana Perino said it was time for a break.

Question! Is USAID in the grip of "rabid anti-west and pro-terror activism?" Or is it just academia which is so afflicted? 

As the gentleman orated, it was hard to tell. But of one thing there was no doubt—USAID was said to have killed 15 million people. 

Gutfeld made that specific claim twice during his peroration, as you can see by clicking here, then sitting through his full speech. (Full disclosure: USAID was said to have killed only 12 million people in Gutfeld's initial statement.)

(Fuller disclosure: Has USAID been promoting "gender equality in Madagascar?" We're not entirely sure why that would be wrong. But a cursory Google search turns up no claim to that effect, not even in reporting at the Fox News site.)

At any rate, that's what viewers in Red America heard on Wednesday night. USAID killed 15 million people, or maybe as few as 12 million. Also, the agency seemed to be connected to "rabid pro-terror activism."

Perino took it to a break. The next day, Gutfeld expanded his analysis:

WATTERS (2/6/25): Greg, I haven't seen a lot of actual regular citizens complain about—

GUTFELD: A very good point, and now we come full circle, Dana, which I will touch on shortly. But your point is well made.  

Where are the grassroots protests?...Instead, you're getting these shrieking Democrats who are acting like drug addicts watching the cops flush their drugs down the toilet—because they are!

So it's really hard to get energized about USAID. And is it because it is a front that creates artificial social instability in foreign countries, portrayed as aid, with the illegitimate goal of installing a puppet of our liking? 

So think about what they are doing in small countries. You will follow me, Dana—trust me. 

They do DEI, identity-driven activism with gender and trans. They make disinformation an urgent cause, while also playing up the latest climate apoplexy.

The fellow continued from there. For the record, Gutfeld still explicitly describes climate change as "a hoax."

On this day, Red America heard the fellow extend his critique. Now, Fox viewers seemed to be told that USAID is about the business of "creating artificial social instability in foreign countries...with the goal of installing a puppet of our liking." 

In service to that end, USAID "make[s] disinformation an urgent cause, while also playing up the latest climate apoplexy." Or so Fox viewers were told.

For the record, in what specific country has USAID "created artificial social instability with the goal of installing a puppet of our liking?"

No example was given this night, and no example was sought. Five Stepfords sat on the panel this night, including the fully transformed Harold Ford.

Everyone agreed with everyone else. Each Stepford agreed with every word each other Stepford produced. 

We were going to show you what Jesse Watters said about USAID. But for today, let's close right now, with this comment:

The night assault which destroyed sacred Troy was an assault of the Late Bronze Age. The journalism we've just described is a deadly night assault of our own Information Age.

Briefly, let's be frank! No serious discussion of any topic exists within our failing culture. In the process, the walls of our own Troy are being overrun. 

(In our view, Blue American orgs have been bad enough. Red American orgs have been worse.)

Is anyone describing this process? Given the way Musk and Trump are now "flooding the zone," that has become an extremely difficult undertaking. That said, ignoring the predecessors to the current flood has been the norm in Blue America for a very long time.

Is there a way to turn back this assault? We know of no obvious way "back out of all this now too much for us."

Meanwhile, we close with this:

What has USAID actually done in Latin America or elsewhere in the world? Given the way our culture now works, there's essentially no way (to find) out.


FRIDAY: Is something "wrong" with Musk / Trump / Vance?

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025

No, really—is something wrong? Is something "wrong" with Elon Musk? No really—is something wrong?

The latest string of bizarre behavior starts with the gang of bro/defectives he's siccing on the republic. One such fellow was 25-year-old Marko Elez. We'll let Mediaite provide some basic background:

DOGE Staffer Out After Social Media Posts Unearthed: ‘Normalize Indian Hate’

[...]

The Wall Street Journal reported on Thursday that Elez was connected with a social media account on X under the name @nullllptr that previously used the username @marko_elez. The account was deleted back in December shortly before Elez joined DOGE.

“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September, according to the Journal. Around the same time, the account wrote “Normalize Indian hate,” in regard to Silicon Valley hiring people from India.

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account connected to Elez wrote in July while another tweet read, “I would not mind at all if Gaza and Israel were both wiped off the face of the Earth.” The account also called for repealing the Civil Rights Act and backed a “eugenic immigration policy.”

The youngster was racist before it was cool! He wouldn't mind if Gaza—and, in fairness, Israel too—was wiped right off the map!

For the record, here's the initial Wall Street Journal report. No one has claimed that the Journal's reporting was inaccurate. That said, here was Musk's response:

Musk Demands Firing of ‘Disgusting, Cruel’ WSJ Reporter Who Uncovered DOGE Employee’s Racist Tweets

That is correct! Musk, who is now the world's richest and most powerful person, wants the reporter fired!  He has denounced her as "disgusting and cruel." Could something be "wrong" with this man?

If something's wrong with Elon Musk, so too perhaps with JD Vance. 

You'll recall that Vance grew up in a home which was so disordered that his grandmother is positioned as the heroic, sane one in the crew—and she once poured gasoline over her sleeping husband and set the man on fire.

Stating the obvious, none of that was the fault of the mistreated child who grew up to be Vance. But the adult Vance has now jumped up to insist that the bro who wants to normalize hatred against people of Indian ancestry / heritage / background should of course be rehired by Musk:

Vance Goes to Bat for 25-Year-Old ‘Kid’ Who Resigned Over Racist Tweets: ‘Bring Him Back’

Inevitably, that has led to this new report by the same Wall Street Journal reporter, dual headline offered:

Trump Calls for Rehiring of DOGE Staffer Who Resigned Over Racist Posts
Employee has links to a deleted social-media account that advocated for racism and eugenics

Inevitably, also this:

JUST IN: Elon Musk To Rehire DOGE Staffer Who Bragged 'I Was Racist Before It Was Cool'

Musk will be rehiring the bro in question. So we all get to enjoy a thoroughly feel-good ending!

In the Iliad, Achilles weeps for sacred Patroclus. Trump and Musk are busy weeping for this disordered "kid."

For better or worse—stated opinions are going to differ—this is the world the reigning commander has dropped on American heads. As for the commander himself, he also wants the Washington Post's Gene Robinson to be fired!

‘He Should Be Fired Immediately!!!’ Trump Rips Washington Post Columnist Following Morning Joe Segment on USAID

As you can see if you read the report, this complaint is stone cold stupid all the way down. Could something be "wrong" with Trump?

Full disclosure:

Normally, when people behave in such erratic ways, you may suspect a drug problem. In the case of these very strange men, it may be as simple as this:

There may simply be something "wrong" with the commander's remarkably large collection of broken toys.

Also, it may be too late to turn back the "night assault" being staged by these peculiar men. That said, Katherine Stewart is holding out hope in a new guest essay for the New York Times.

In our view, the headline above her essay asks an interesting question:

Now Will We Believe What Is Happening Right in Front of Us?

They told us they would smash the institutions that safeguard our democracy. And that is exactly what they are doing.

Many Americans chose not to believe what they were saying. Will we now believe what we are seeing?

To be clear, “they” are not just Donald Trump and his billionaire co-pilot. Over the past half-century, an anti-democratic movement has coalesced in the United States...

That's the way the essay starts. It poses an intriguing question:

At this point, will we Americans be able to see what's happening right before us? Will we be able to believe what we're seeing? 

 In this morning's report, we pondered a similar question. Here's the problem with Stewart's framework:

Stewart seems to assume that it isn't too late for us to come to our senses and successfully push back. It could be that it isn't too late. But it may also be that it is.

How did we ever get to this place? At present, madness is conducting a "night assault" on basic institutions. Next week, we expect to explore the various ways we denizens of Blue America have helped bring on, and enable, this burgeoning madness.

Is something "wrong" with Elon Musk? No really—is something wrong?


MADMEN: Yes, the commander actually said it!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 7, 2025

This is our own "night assault:" As we've noted in the past, the "night assault" which occasioned the death of sacred Troy isn't described in the Iliad.

That said, make no mistake—we're currently experiencing our own present-day "night assault." 

The Iliad is a story of the late Bronze Age. By way of contrast, we live in an era which is known as "the information age." 

That said, the madness in question is bred in the bone; it's part of the human inheritance. Once again, we think of Professor Knox's account of that Bronze Age "night assault," including his account of the lesson it was intended to deliver to succeeding generations of Greeks.

The assault in question follows the slaying of noble Hector by the madman Achilles. Within the verses of the Iliad, Achilles proceeds to drag Hector's body through the dust outside the walls of Troy, even as Hector's horrified parents look on from Troy's high walls.

With the upstanding Hector defeated at last, those towering walls could be breeched. In his 1990 essay in support of the Robert Fagles translation, Professor Knox offered this account of the assault which followed, and of the lesson this famous poem was intended to teach:

Professor Knox, Introduction

 [...]

The whole poem has been moving toward this duel between the two champions, but there has never been any doubt about the outcome. The husband and father, the beloved protector of his people, the man who stands for the civilized values of the rich city, its social and religious institutions, will go down to defeat at the hands of this man who has no family, who in a private quarrel has caused the death of many of his own fellow soldiers, who now in a private quarrel thinks only of revenge, though that revenge, as he well knows, is the immediate prelude to his own death. And the death of Hector seals the fate of Troy; it will fall to the Achaeans, to become the pattern for all time of the death of a city. 

The images of that night assault—the blazing palaces, the blood running in the streets, old Priam butchered at the altar, Cassandra raped in the temple, Hector's baby son thrown from the battlements, his wife Andromache dragged off to slavery—all this, foreshadowed in the Iliad, will be stamped indelibly on the consciousness of the Greeks throughout their history, immortalized in lyric poetry, in tragedy, on temple pediments and painted vases, to reinforce the stern lesson of Homer's presentation of the war: that no civilization, no matter how rich, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.

That was a "night assault" carried out in the Late Bronze Age. Today, though, make no mistake:

We here in our "Information Age" are undergoing a similar night assault. The background to that earlier assault would be this:

From the opening verses of the Iliad, Achilles is the mightiest of all the warriors, but he's also a visible nutcase. Eventually, the madness of that time and place are expressed in the night assault his comrades inflict on the more civilized Troy:

A baby boy is thrown to his death. Hector's wife is dragged away. 

Hector's father, the generous King Priam, is butchered at the altar. Hector's sister is raped. 

These were the types of penalties performed by the madmen of that age. According to Professor Knox, this was the lesson this story was intended to convey to the (many) generations which followed:

No civilization, no matter how refined, can long survive once it loses the power to meet force with equal or superior force.

Even by the time of Classical Greece, "the power to meet force with equal or superior force" was a reference to military power. Today, we live in a messaging age. 

It's entirely possible those of us in Blue America have already lost this era's messaging war in a way which can't be reversed. Beyond that, it must be said:

Our own Blue American civilization was never anywhere near as "refined"—as intellectually brilliant and morally pure—as we Blues have always imagined and alleged. 

Simply put, we aren't the people we've persistently claimed to be, and we never were. A similar situation obtained in (the fictional) Oran, concerning which Camus (metaphorically) told us this:

Albert Camus, The Plague

CAMUS (page 36): The word “plague” had just been uttered for the first time. At this stage of the narrative, with Dr. Bernard Rieux standing at his window, the narrator may, perhaps, be allowed to justify the doctor’s uncertainty and surprise—since, with very slight differences, his reaction was the same as that of the great majority of our townfolk. Everybody knows that pestilences have a way of recurring in the world; yet somehow we find it hard to believe in the ones that come crashing down on our heads from a blue sky. 

He even used the term "blue sky!" Moments later, Camus continued

In fact, like our fellow citizens, Rieux was caught off his guard...

Our townsfolk were like everybody else, wrapped up in themselves; in other words they were humanists: they disbelieved in pestilences. A pestilence isn't a thing made to man's measure; therefore we tell ourselves that pestilence is a mere bogy of the mind, a bad dream that will pass away. But it doesn't always pass away and, from one bad dream to another, it is men who pass away, and the humanists first of all, because they haven't taken their precautions. 

Our townsfolk were not more to blame than others; they forgot to be modest, that was all, and thought that everything still was possible for them; which presupposed that pestilences were impossible. They went on doing business, arranged for journeys, and formed views. How should they have given a thought to anything like plague, which rules out any future, cancels journeys, silences the exchange of views. They fancied themselves free, and no one will ever be free so long as there are pestilences. 

The people of Oran hadn't been able to see it coming! According to Camus, no one will ever be free "as long as there are pestilences" (with their attendant "night assaults").

We Blues! Like the people of Oran, we just kept believing our own twaddle.  Our blindness dates back at least sixty years, though we'll set that chronology aside for another day.

(By happenstance, we ourselves were physically present on the day the problem began.)

We didn't quite see it coming! Even today, our tribunes refuse to employ the language which describes what's currently happening. They refuse to acknowledge the presence of "madmen" engaged in a new form of "madness." 

(In fairness, a few of our tribunes flirt with an appropriate term of art, "coup.")

The Achaeans overran Troy's walls. Within the past two weeks, Elon Musk, a visible nutcase, has seized control of the instruments of the Information Age. 

Yesterday, as USAID fell, that nutball's commander was droning at the annual prayer breakfast, giving voice to such madness as this—and yes, this madman actually made the statement we've set out in bold:

TRUMP (2/6/25): We're doing really well. It's, I think—

In two weeks, they're saying—I'm reading it, so I'm not even saying it—but I feel it, that we've done more than just about any president ever. 

The first two weeks have been probably, they say, the most successful two weeks in the history of any presidency. Now what we have to do is keep it going for another couple of hundred weeks. But it's been very successful...

After years of decline, Americans are reasserting our true identity as a people ordained by God to be the freest and most exceptional nation ever to exist on the face of the earth. But we weren't that for four years. I don't believe we were. And we're getting there very soon, very quickly. I'll be able to say it, and we'll be able to say it again, as I said in my inaugural address two weeks ago, a light is now shining over the world, the entire world, and I'm hearing it from other leaders.

I'm hearing it from leaders that have traditionally not been on our side. That there's so much more— there's such a good feeling in the air. It's so different than it was just a short time ago. Because here in America we are once again a nation that believes in ourselves. 

We believe in our destiny and trust in the providence of almighty God. And I can tell you the opposite side, the opposing sideand they oppose religion. They oppose God. They've lost their confidence. They've lost their confidence. It's a different group of people than I remember. 

His entire address was a tribute to an unexplored, undescribed version of apparent madness. But once again, here's that one thing this apparent nutcase actually said:

I can tell you the opposite side, the opposing side—and they oppose religion. They oppose God.

So went the unifying message at the annual Prayer Breakfast, even as the night assault raced along.

Almost surely, you don't believe that the commander actually said that. It's also true that Blue America's news orgs are weirdly refusing to report the fact that he made those highlighted remarks.

That said, the commander did make those remarks! To see C-Span's full videotape, you can just click here. The passage we've posted starts at the 12:30 mark. His statements about the way the opposite side "opposes God" can be seen at the 13:45 mark.

(Here's the New York Times report on that address. For whatever reason, Shawn McCreesh, or perhaps his editor, has chosen to disappear those astounding remarks.)

Our comments today have been occasioned by the night assault on USAID. This is a modern version of the Bronze Age assault described by Professor Knox. 

Also this: All across the Blue American dial, we still don't seem to know how to describe these events. 

For decades, we Blues have insisted that we were the very smart, highly moral people. Rather plainly, we aren't.

We aren't any smarter than anyone else. (In the language of Camus, we're "like everybody else.") Beyond that, our vaunted morality has routinely been a performative matter—an artefact of obvious public performance, visible to everyone but us.

We aren't the townsfolk we said we were! That doesn't mean that we're bad people. It means that we're people people.

Like the Trojans, we're being overrun. With no modern-day Hector around, it isn't clear that we 'll be able to find a way to resist.

We've earned our way out again and gain. Today, as before, that assault!

For extra credit only: According to Homer, who was Achilles? 

In the formulation of Professor Knox, he was "this man who now in a private quarrel thinks only of revenge."

Compare and contrast. Also, you can muse.


THURSDAY: What might a specialist say about that?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2025

We'll suggest that you listen to Reason: “What can you say about a twenty-five-year-old girl who died?”

We apologize for repeating the opening line of the 1970 Erich Segal blockbuster novel, Love Story. That opening line popped into our heads as we pondered a similar question.

Our own question goes like this:

What can you say about a 78-year-old man who keeps making blatantly ludicrous statements?

What can you say about a person like that? (We're thinking of Donald J. Trump!)

What can you say about a person like Donald J. Trump? We still owe you our reaction to the fact-checks which appeared concerning his ludicrous claim about the way our own United States has been "ripped off" by the World Health Organization. 

(For our initial report on that topic, you can just click here.)

That report dealt with the commander's ludicrous claim about the way we were being ripped off by the WHO. We assume his recent statement about the number of Chinese-language signs in Panama is also an absurd misstatement—but when we tried to consult the fact-checks of that statement, we found that no one had bothered to try.

In fairness, Trump says so many crazy things that it's very hard to keep up. Many orgs have simply abandoned the task of fact-checking his endless string of absurd misstatements. As a general matter, those same orgs have never been willing to ask what the existence of so many crazy statements may perhaps or possibly say about the person who makes them.

With those facts in mind, we'll update our question:

What can you say about a 78-year-old man who keeps making crazy statements? If a person keeps making crazy statements, what might that say or suggest about him?

Our trigger today is a report by Joe Lancaster for the web site over at Reason. Below, you see the headline atop the piece, and you see the crazy statements which have now, at long last, been thoroughly debunked:

Transcript Proves the 60 Minutes Scandal Was Always Fake

An issue that came to define the closing days of the 2024 presidential election, oddly, was a single televised interview with Vice President Kamala Harris, the Democratic candidate. Republican candidate Donald Trump claimed the interview was misleadingly edited to Harris' benefit and demanded investigations—which he, as the newly elected president, could potentially order.

This week, CBS released the transcript and raw footage of the interview, demonstrating how pointless the controversy always was but also potentially setting a dangerous precedent for the future of news media.

[...]

"[Harris] gave an answer that was from a loony bin," Trump claimed two weeks later at a campaign rally. "[CBS News] said, 'We can't have that.' They took the answer out in its entirety, threw it away, and they put another answer in. And I think it's the biggest scandal in broadcasting history."

According to the crazy statement in question, the way CBS edited Candidate Harris' statement constituted "the biggest scandal in broadcasting history." 

Also, it constituted "election interference," this person weirdly said.

Now, the full videotape and transcript of the interview has been released. As Lancaster notes, the material shows how clownish the commander's statements actually were.

We'll recommend that you peruse Lancaster's full report, which demonstrates the craziness of this famous person's claims. We close with another version of our own question:

What can you say about a commander who keeps saying the darnedest things? What might a specialist say about a person who just keeps behaving like that?


MADMEN: Did King George suffer from porphyria?

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 2025

Did he spot a ball of worms? Is something wrong with Elon Musk? No, really—is something "wrong" with Musk?

We've shared some of the gentleman's tweets in recent days. We should have included his additional comment, offered this Monday, about the ball of worms he and his teen warfighters have apparently discovered in the halls of USAID: 

The first lieutenant's assessments
"USAID was a viper's nest of radical-left Marxists who hate America." 

"USAID is evil." 

“USAID is a criminal organization. Time for it to die.” 

"We spent the weekend feeding USAID into the wood chipper. Could [have] gone to some great parties. Did that instead."

 "It became apparent that what we have here is not an apple with a worm in it. What we have actually is just a ball of worms."

At DOGE, the kingpin spotted a ball of worms—and he fed them into a chipper!

Those statements by the lieutenant strike us as highly unusual. It's hard to avoid wondering if something might be "wrong" with this rather strange individual, or even with the commander who has commissioned this nighttime assault.

Could something be "wrong" with Elon Musk? In theory, everything's possible! Meanwhile, in this morning's New York Times, Nicholas Kristof describes the peculiar arrangement which currently obtains as Musk and his band of warfighters conduct their night-time assault:

The World’s Richest Men Take On the World’s Poorest Children

The world’s richest man is boasting about destroying the United States Agency for International Development, which saves the lives of the world’s poorest children, saying he shoved it “into the wood chipper.”

By my calculations, Elon Musk probably has a net worth greater than that of the poorest billion people on Earth. Just since Donald Trump’s election, Musk’s personal net worth has grown by far more than the entire annual budget of U.S.A.I.D., which in any case accounts for less than 1 percent of the federal budget. It’s callous for gleeful billionaires like Musk and President Trump to cut children off from medicine, but, as President John F. Kennedy pointed out when he proposed the creation of the agency in 1961, it’s also myopic.

As he continues, Kristof describes the things he's seen around the world as USAID saves children from starvation. He also explains the way these missions serve the American national interest, as President Kennedy said.

Kristof has seen starving children. By way of contrast, the world's richest person says he has spotted a ball of worms. He's spotted the vipers and the radical Marxists who need to go into the chipper! 

Is something wrong with this guy? Could something even be wrong with the commander who unloosed Musk on the world? 

It can almost seem like a fairly obvious question—but under current rules of the game, it's a question the tribunes of our failing discourse aren't allowed to ask or explore. Under prevailing rules of the game, attention must not be paid! 

Example:

On this morning's Morning Joe, the word "crazy" was uttered, again and again, as David Ignatius and others described the commander's now retracted plan to remake Gaza as a Pleasantville.

The proposal came, and then it went. The word "crazy" was in wide employ on Morning Joe, but it can't be found in Ignatius' column, which appears beneath this unflattering dual headline:
Real estate developer in a china shop
To a region still recovering from the trauma of war, Trump’s proposed takeover of Gaza was incendiary.

The word "crazy" doesn't appear in that column. Instead, we see the "incendiary" proposal described as "jaw-dropping" and "capricious," with this sidelong observation thrown in:

There have been signs for months that the plan had taken root in the mind of the former real estate developer.

The jaw-dropping, capricious plan had been taking root in his mind. That said, there is no claim that the plan, or even its craftsman, could perhaps be crazy in some way. In high-end journalism, for better or worse, such things simply aren't done.

We very much don't offer this as a criticism of the invaluable Ignatius. For better or worse, we'll guess that we're looking at an aspect of Post editorial policy.

That said, we are looking at a basic feature of contemporary public discourse, in which we aren't allowed to wonder if something might be (clinically) "wrong" with the world's most powerful men.

Is Lieutenant Musk a madman? As we've told you again and again, there's no such clinical term! 

Beyond that, a more nuanced discussion is strictly forbidden in the case of major political figures, including those who capriciously shut down programs which keep starving children alive.

Over on the Fox News Channel, the flyweights, stumblebums and Stepfords continue to recite the mandated points about the brilliant work of the commander and his lieutenant. Within the beachfront properties of Blue America, our own journalists—such as they are—are forbidden from thinking about a fairly obvious, if highly complexificated, matter of possible public concern.

It's verboten! Tribunes aren't allowed to talk about "mental illness," which most clinical practitioners prefer to refer to as "mental disorder." As we noted yesterday, there seem to be hundreds of such disorders—but if you believe in this branch of medical science, you can't reveal that here.

We do speak freely about "mental illness" in the realm of everyday street crime. Also, we're allowed to speak about such matters regarding historical figures. Just consider poor King George!

What the Sam Hill was wrong with King George? The leading authority on a 1994 feature film offers this overview of the matter:

The Madness of King George 

The Madness of King George is a 1994 British biographical comedy drama film directed by Nicholas Hytner and adapted by Alan Bennett from his own 1991 play The Madness of George III. It tells the true story of George III of Great Britain's deteriorating mental health, and his equally declining relationship with his eldest son, the Prince of Wales, particularly focusing on the period around the Regency Crisis of 1788–89. Two text panels at the end of the film note that the color of the King's urine suggests that he was suffering from porphyria, adding that the disease is "periodic, unpredictable and hereditary."

The Madness of King George won the BAFTA Awards in 1995 for Outstanding British Film and Best Actor in a Leading Role for Nigel Hawthorne, who was also nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actor. 

What the heck was wrong with King George? Questions abound:

Did he really engage in conduct which could be described, if only colloquially, as a type of "madness?" If so, was he suffering from porphyria, and is porphyria a "mental disorder?" 

In these decidedly latter days, we're allowed to ask such questions about public figures, as long as they exist in the past. Regarding the status of porphyria, the leading authority on the topic offers such assessments as these:

Porphyria

Porphyria is a group of disorders in which substances called porphyrins build up in the body, adversely affecting the skin or nervous system. The types that affect the nervous system are also known as acute porphyria, as symptoms are rapid in onset and short in duration. Symptoms of an attack include abdominal pain, chest pain, vomiting, confusion, constipation, fever, high blood pressure, and high heart rate. The attacks usually last for days to weeks. Complications may include paralysis, low blood sodium levels, and seizures...

Most types of porphyria are inherited from one or both of a person's parents and are due to a mutation in one of the genes that make heme. They may be inherited in an autosomal dominant, autosomal recessive, or X-linked dominant manner.

[...]

History

The underlying mechanism was first described by the German physiologist Felix Hoppe-Seyler in 1871, and acute porphyrias were described by the Dutch physician Barend Stokvis in 1889.

The links between porphyrias and mental illness have been noted for decades. In the early 1950s, patients with porphyrias (occasionally referred to as "porphyric hemophilia") and severe symptoms of depression or catatonia were treated with electroshock therapy.

[...]

Notable cases

George III. The mental illness exhibited by George III in the regency crisis of 1788 has inspired several attempts at retrospective diagnosis. The first, written in 1855, thirty-five years after his death, concluded that he had acute mania. M. Guttmacher, in 1941, suggested manic-depressive psychosis as a more likely diagnosis. The first suggestion that a physical illness was the cause of King George's mental derangement came in 1966, in a paper called "The Insanity of King George III: A Classic Case of Porphyria," with a follow-up in 1968, "Porphyria in the Royal Houses of Stuart, Hanover and Prussia." The papers, by a mother/son psychiatrist team, were written as though the case for porphyria had been proven, but the response demonstrated that many experts, including those more intimately familiar with the manifestations of porphyria, were unconvinced. Many psychiatrists disagreed with the diagnosis, suggesting bipolar disorder as far more probable...

Quite a few other notable cases are thumbnailed. We are allowed to discuss the "mental illness" of major public figures—just so long as they aren't present-day spotters of worms or serial dispensers of jaw-dropping proposals. 

According to the leading authority, King George III actually was gripped by "mental illness." Porphyria may not be a "mental illness" itself, but it seems to be linked to same.

Under current rules of the game, we're allowed to talk about that. For better or worse, we aren't allowed to talk about this—about the nighttime assault now underway on our own sacred Troy, the assault which is proceeding along on a crazy daily basis.

Did the king ever spot a ball of worms? Citizens, we're just asking!

Tomorrow: Pity for the afflicted