CT Blue

Without going into details, I have lately, in my role as an attorney, had a frustrating time trying to get a mental health agency to help a client deal with a tenant who is mentally ill, paranoid and delusional. We think she is at risk of harming herself, but they say that while she has a “fixed delusion”, she is otherwise high functioning and until she actually does harm herself, there's nothing they can do.

It has been frustrating, because we truly believe she is at risk, but as I said to my client, they may have a point. If we were going to seek some sort of protection for everyone with a fixed delusion, we'd need a caseworker for almost every Republican in the country.

Think about it. Birthers, tenthers, sovereign citizens, religious zealots and now, there's this:

From a post at Kos, an extended quote:

Tonight, at a local candidate forum, the Republican candidate for Pueblo County Commissioner essentially endorsed the Sandy Hook truther position.

…

The guy's name is Dr. Tom Ready, a dentist, and his Democratic opponent is the incumbent Sal Pace, who's served in various elected positions including the Colorado state legislature.

Ready began an answer to one of the moderator's questions by talking about the ludicrously high electric rates in Pueblo county (they are) and then stated his belief that we should go back to coal because “coal is clean” (eye roll). During his two minute statement, Ready declared that the reason rates were so high was that a bill Pace voted for at the state level forced the local utility to dump coal plants for natural gas. Pace explained that he spoke directly with representatives of the utility in question before he voted, and they told him that they were planning to close their coal plant anyway, so the switch to natural gas wouldn't alter their rate structure.

It was in Ready's back-and-forth rebuttal comments that he nuked his candidacy. Again he went after Pace for his vote on that bill, which also mandated a minimum percentage of electric generation from green sources, like solar or wind, which gave the utility an excuse forced the utility to raise its rates. (my strike)

At this point I thought, “Ruh roh, he's got Pace on that one.” It was going take a deft answer to squirm around that shot, since it's hard to tell low income folks that they must pay more for electricity so it will be cleaner. Further, the host of the debate, The Pueblo Chieftain (which is the local, decidedly conservative newspaper with massive market penetration) had been hammering that very point for months.

I was caught off guard when Pace completely ignored the expensive clean energy attack by stating that the two candidates had agreed to keep it clean before the debate started, but since Ready went there… Pace proceeded to ask him about stuff on Ready's Facebook page dealing with Sandy Hook being faked so a gun ban could be passed. Oh, and Pace pointed out that he has a connection to someone whose kid was murdered in that school shooting.

I expected Ready to deflect this easily with a quick, “Why are you talking about nonsense on Facebook, I asked you about voting to raise rates on low income Puebloans for the sake of "clean energy”. Explain that vote.“

But no.

Ready went for it, and began to claim that there is no proof that Sandy Hook actually happened. Unbelievable.

That was when the crowd erupted. There for a second I thought they were going to drag him out in the street and tar and feather him like he was a Wall Street banker. I've never seen spontaneous public outrage come out of left field like that.

Then he started talking about a video that showed the father of one of the "victims” walking into a meeting laughing and joking and coming out crying. “Explain to me why he would do that!” This yahoo actually tried to make the truther argument while his own people were jeering him.

Stunning.

When the moderator asked Pace if he had a rebuttal Pace quietly said, “I have no further comment.” I swear I saw him wag his tail as he swallowed a canary.

He's tried to back off, saying he was only “putting it out there for discussion”. Sort of the way you'd put the shape of the earth “out there for discussion”. The right wing local paper has covered for him as well, and if I had to bet, I'd say he'll still get elected. So there you have it. People with fixed delusions can continue to function quite well in this society, in fact they can thrive, so who were we to try to get the social service system to help an old lady who thinks there's someone under her floorboards? What we should have done is contact the Republican party to see if they want to nominate her for Congress.