☕️ DEADCATTING ☙ Friday, November 6, 2026 ☙ C&C NEWS 🦠

A warning you need to hear about swelling election fraud claims; our third entry in the election-miracle series; and the disquieting silence from the Oval Office about the midterms.

Good morning, C&C, it’s Friday! I’m hotel blogging from lovely Chattanooga this morning; it’s cool, sunny, red-golden leaves are turning, carefree birds are chirping, and nature itself couldn’t care less about Tuesday’s elections. We humans are stuck with the New York Times. Your abbreviated traveling roundup includes a timely warning, a third Democrat election miracle, and the fascinating relative silence on the election from the White House.

⛑️ C&C ARMY BRIEFING ⛑️

We begin with a warning: a great trial will soon begin. As the details from Tuesday’s Great Shellacking continue bubbling up through the peaty swamp, folks are understandably (and correctly) asking questions and —also understandably— wondering about election fraud. Not quite obsession, it is burning white-hot— almost like “election integrity” has been a daily mantra since 2020 or something.

You can be sure that the enemies of civilization have noticed. So we all must review the first play in the post-social-media election psyop playbook: the rumor mill. It’s a simple and effective strategy. They spread over-the-top conspiracy claims that are easy to defeat. This is called black propaganda, or an information-side agent provocateur. Soviet spymasters, who coined the colorful term ‘kompromat,’ called this strategy provocatsiya.

The Brits call it deadcatting. Former UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson described it in the Telegraph in 2013: when the facts are against you, “your best bet” is “throwing a dead cat on the table,” because then “they will be talking about the dead cat… and they will not be talking about the issue that has been causing you so much grief.”

In a nutshell: throw the dead cat, wait for the screaming, then marshal three experts to explain that the cat wasn’t dead; he was just sleeping. It wasn’t even a cat! It was just a throw pillow. And, how dare you.

Here’s how it works in 2026’s digital world. Remember the Times published two exposé stories this year, one about “armies of small social media influencers” and another about how big-name influencers can easily be paid for organic-looking posts. Campaigns are available for same-day launch right on websites.

When those fake claims are loudly echoing through social media and the time is ripe to spring the trap, the New York Times runs a “fact check” article— but only on the kooky claims. Media calls this “nutpicking.” Corporate media painstakingly debunks the noise— only the most extreme claims, which it paints as patently ridiculous, all while studiously ignoring the real problems.

The only way to defeat this gambit is painful and requires patience: hold your fire.

Let me show you, via a little fable I just made up.

🪖 Say a disgruntled ex-employee accuses LeBron James High School Principal Quinitious Rogers, 53, of faking student SAT scores, through a complicated scheme of timing reporting across different cycles, shifting reporting categories, and in some cases, shaving points from high-scoring students and adding them to low-scoring minority students, which helps DEI goals and gets the school more federal funding. (Yesterday, an Arkansas story rhymed with this hypothetical.)

Rumors begin swirling. So Principal Rogers consults a Democrat “secret ballot maneuver specialist.” They concoct a plan.

Soon, more rumors begin to circulate. One claims Principal Rogers embezzled hundreds of thousands from the school’s widows and orphans funds. Another claims a torrid, years-long affair with his secretary, and secret first-class trips to Cancún, Mexico, where the pair engaged in obscene acts with a Lucha Libre micro-wrestling team called the Dos Rios.

Furious ‘parents’ begin to show up at school board meetings demanding Principal Rogers be promptly fired. Many weren’t even parents in the school district, which one guy pointed out on Facebook but was promptly ignored. Things go as you’d expect as the pressure on Rogers to resign increased.

Then, two weeks later, Rogers holds a dramatic press conference. He tearfully explains how the rumors are destroying his career, marriage, and his Hollywood acting aspirations. He says he tried to ignore all the horrible slander at first, but now he feels he has no choice but to respond. Then he turns the podium over to two CPAs from an independent accounting firm.

They report a full investigation. The accountants push their glasses up on their noses, clear their throats, and solemnly explain that the “widows and orphans fund” is just a small savings account that has never held more than $736 at the most. Never anything close to hundreds of thousands. And it has only ever paid for funeral flowers. They found no evidence of embezzlement.

Then, even more dramatically, his secretary Delores takes the stage. Everyone immediately notices she is 83. Delores, sobbing into her handkerchief, says the rumors got her kicked out of the ladies’ book club. She says she hasn’t been with a man since before the war. (The Civil War.) She doesn’t even know what Lucha Libre is, and has never even met a micro-wrestler.

Finally, they bring in a box, and a short but colorfully masked Mexican wrestler steps up. In broken English, he explains the team is not called “Dos Rios,” it’s “Dios Rios” —rivers of god— and the team is a group of undersized monks who’ve all taken vows of chastity. They only wrestle for charity events supporting disabled youth. They can’t believe they’ve had to come to Manhattan to deal with this, but felt a spiritual duty to affirm the truth— which is that they’ve never even met Principal Rogers until that day.

Then Rogers comes back up. He blows his nose and tells reporters that he hopes that has cleared everything up and the school can move on with the important mission of improving children’s lives through high-quality education. He asks whether there are any final questions. A moment of dramatic silence follows.

Then, suddenly, a voice in the back cries out, “but what about the SAT scores?” The entire room gasps in horror. Like a giant Lazy Susan, they swivel to face the final accuser. “Have you no sense of decency, sir?” they demand in unison. “At long last, have you left no sense of decency?” In a distant echo from the McCarthy hearings, they shake their heads ruefully and say, “Let us not assassinate this lad further. You’ve done enough.”

That afternoon, the local papers run stories about moral panics and conspiracy theories and how parents can’t be trusted with their children’s education, and thank goodness for selfless, upright, and upstanding bureaucrats like Principal Rogers, whose livelihood was nearly destroyed by social media misinformation.

The SAT scores are long forgotten. It will be years before anybody is brave enough to question Principal Rogers’ veracity. Even though, all along, it was Rogers who quietly paid social media influencers to spread the noisy rumors about embezzling orphans’ money and orgies with short wrestlers.

See how it works? Dead cats. Provocatsiya.

🪖 We can see the same fake vultures already circling the “election fraud” issue. It’s happening right on schedule. Wild claims are fluttering around social media like flying monkeys from The Wizard of Oz. It’s not that the viral claims are true or false. The only thing we know to be true is that it is too soon to be sure about anything.

Skepticism is healthy and well justified. But let’s not make the rumor gambit easy for them. I’m not saying we must wait for a court to decide; we are still waiting for a decision on 2020. But three days after an election is not nearly sufficient to crawl out on any branches, not while Times reporters are standing right below, holding saws.

Be patient. Hold fire. There’s no hurry. Let’s see what happens.

🌍🇺🇸 ESSENTIAL NEWS AND COMMENTARY 🇺🇸🌍

🔥🔥🔥

Welcome to the third installment in our “things that make you go hmm” series. Yesterday, The Associated Press reported, “Iowa Democrat wins state House race despite suspending campaign in September.” Prepare for another electoral miracle.

Yesterday we learned about Ericka in Fort Worth, the unqualified felon who dropped out, was outspent 75-to-1, and still won twice. Today the blue wave washed up her Iowa cousin. His name is Eric Armstrong. Eric, Ericka. You can’t make it up.

Eric Armstrong won an open Iowa House seat in Council Bluffs and Carter Lake —just across the river from Omaha— by a comfortable 865 votes. Eric got 4,602; his Republican opponent, Keith Jones, got 3,737. That’s about 55% to 45%. It wasn’t a photo finish or a fluke.

House District 20 is not some deep-blue campus ward. In 2024, Trump carried it 6,226 to 5,270, or 53 percent to 45 percent. Democrats had held the seat on a shoestring: Josh Turek first won it in 2022 by only six votes (he survived a GOP targeting operation in 2024). This year Turek left the seat open because he was busy flipping Joni Ernst’s U.S. Senate seat, beating Ashley Hinson statewide. The Iowa GOP smelled a pickup. They kept spending after Eric quit.

Two months ago on September 7th, Eric posted on Facebook, “Because I must prioritize my health and recovery at this time, I am stepping down from my campaign, effective immediately.” Republicans still lost. In a Trump district. To a Democrat with no prior experience who had dropped out and stopped campaigning months ago.

🔥 Eric, a retired railroad executive and another first-time candidate, announced on September 7th that he was done. “Running a successful campaign requires immense physical and mental energy,” he wrote on Facebook. “Recently, I have been facing some personal health issues that require my full attention and immediate care.” The district, he said, “deserves a representative who can give 100 percent of their energy to this race.” Right now, he added, “I must focus on healing so that I can continue to serve our community in other ways in the future.”

He’s never said what the illness was.

Iowa’s deadline to pull a primary nominee off the general-election ballot was August 14th. Eric quit three weeks late, so his name stayed on. The Republican, Jones, a Pottawattamie County supervisor and former police lieutenant, didn’t take anything for granted. He kept campaigning. The Republican Party of Iowa kept writing checks. Eric had raised about $41,000. Jones only raised about $12,000 in cash, but the state GOP poured in roughly $126,000 more in advertised in-kind support —TV, digital, mail— much of it in mid-to-late October, after Eric withdrew on Facebook.

The GOP outspent a first-timer dropout by at least three to one in a district Trump carried. And still lost.

It doesn’t prove anything. But you have to admit it’s weird.

🔥 On Thursday, after winning in what can only be described as another electoral miracle, Eric posted that he was “proud to announce that we won Iowa House District 20.” Proud? How about surprised, shocked, or gobsmacked? He thanked supporters for “listening at more than 17,000 doorsteps” and promised that “the voters of District 20 sent a clear message about the direction they want for Iowa, and I will make sure that message is carried to the Capitol in January.”

Eric told the New York Times, “I’m going to do my best to represent” the district. He’ll do his best! He’s not promising anything: “But I still have health issues. That’s what I’m struggling with.” Be sympathetic. “It” is a struggle. “It” is health issues. “Issues” are usually gross things that come out of oneself and are best left undescribed in polite company.

So: in September, according to Eric himself, the district deserved someone who could give 100 percent, and he would serve in other ways. But in November, he won anyway, fondly reminisced about 17,000 doors, and promised to see them in Des Moines in January. He did not say he was feeling better.

The loser, Jones, isn’t happy, and I don’t blame him. Showing admirable restraint, he told Fox News, “I think we deserve to know more,” and asked whether Eric had “lied about being sick to cover a damaging personal story.” It’s a fair question. Who should we believe? September Eric or November Eric?

The district numbers are also weird. Not quite as inexplicably strange as Ericka’s were, since Iowa HD-20 is less lopsidedly red than Ericka’s Fort Worth district. But it still makes little sense.

🔥 On Tuesday, Eric ran a little behind Harris-2024 (668 fewer votes). But compared to 2022’s midterms, Tuesday was a blowout. Eric just got 1,200 more Democrat votes in this small county than Turek did in 2022— and Turek hadn’t dropped out. He was actually running. Meanwhile, compared to 2024, about 2,500 Trump voters simply vanished like the crew of the Marie Celeste. Where did they go? The Bermuda Triangle?

2,500 registered Republicans are not a lot of voters. Somebody should get out there and ask them. We badly need a wellness check on Iowa HD-20.

Like Texas Ericka, Iowa Eric’s successful campaign strategy was quitting. Calling himself unable to perform the office made zero difference. There’s no evidence his confession of an inability to serve affected Democrat turnout at all. Being outspent three-to-one and not-campaigning didn’t move the needle at all.

I can believe that some Democrats are so low-information that they didn’t even know Eric dropped out. Maybe even many of them. But all of them? Every one? Are all Democrats mindless robots? They all vote on autopilot? Vote blue no matter who— even if they are out of the race? Does that pass your smell test?

After Biden’s basement, Talarico’s three-week flu holiday, yesterday’s convicted felon in Fort Worth with no website, and now this, somebody needs to explain to me why any Democrat candidate should ever campaign or spend any money. Why text anyone? Why pay for mailers? Why buy social media influencers?

If these numbers are right, it means blue voters don’t care who’s running their own county. None of them check whether the candidate is available to take the office. They only care about the letter beside the name. Even if they are convicted felons who can’t serve or drop out with sketchy claims of unnamed illnesses.

It’s possible. But it would be a miracle. The third one in our series. The dead cats are piling up.

🔥 Still— hold your fire. There are a lot of people digging into the results. The Trump Administration has been uncharacteristically quiet. Silence isn’t proof, but it can be a signal. Trump has spoken, but his comments about the elections have been brief and uncontroversial. Apart from one quip about Decoy Dan in Alaska, where Peltola currently leads the real Dan Sullivan by about 640 votes, he hasn’t deployed the word “fraud.” It’s a complete contrast to 2020. The UK Independent’s headline said Trump was rambling:

Wednesday’s published schedule listed no public events, just executive time and closed-door meetings. Then the press pool was hastily called to the unfinished White House ballroom, where the President chatted about construction for more than 15 minutes, signed a steel beam (writing “Love!” above his name), and never mentioned Tuesday’s losses until asked.

Governor DeSantis called the night “the political equivalent of a meteor strike,” and “as close to an extinction-level event for Republicans in many parts of the country as we have seen probably in the last 100 years.” But Trump told reporters, “This is the safest place in Washington. It’s good for me. It’s relaxing.” He added, “Our country is more successful now than at any time in its history — watch that beam go up.” His first morning-after Truth Social post was days-old glowing New York Post coverage of the “Donroe Doctrine,” not an election postmortem.

Yesterday morning, the press pool was closed again. Around 4 p.m. he brought the pool into the Oval —a Veto hat carefully staged on a stack of White House history books— and signed a proclamation declaring the Oval Office, the Outer Oval, and the Cabinet Room to be the “Oval Office National Monument.” Today’s schedule matches the pattern: a closed-press morning (executive time, a pre-tape interview, policy meetings, a Diwali celebration), then remarks around 6:00 p.m. during NASA’s MAX POWER expo at Kennedy Space Center, then on to Palm Beach for the weekend.

All quiet on the Western Front.

Compared to the frantic flurry of lawfare leading up to Tuesday, the DOJ also seems to have stood down. Remember— it had 1,000 election monitors deployed across the US in all 50 states. What happened? The only new lawsuit it’s filed since Tuesday was a DEI lawsuit against Penn State for giving non-citizens in-state tuition. Unspoken is the vast apparatus of the federal government and its election integrity machinery.

Trump could be dazed and confused, like the media’s narrative. If so, that would be the first time. But he is giving the media nothing to work with in terms of soundbites. He’s been humble and distracted. That’s new and different. Corporate media expected a Trump blowout of threats and stolen election quotes. They must be chewing the carpets.

It could be nothing. But it feels like dramatic tension. All we can do for now is stay tuned. And don’t pet that kitty.

Have a fantastic Friday! Tomorrow we will get back to some non-election essential news and caffeinated commentary, including the new peer-reviewed study finding Pfizer jab deaths beating Moderna. See you then.

Don’t race off! We cannot do it alone. Consider joining up with C&C to help move the nation’s needle and change minds. I could sure use your help getting the truth out and spreading optimism and hope, if you can: ☕ Learn How to Get Involved 🦠

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