Unforeseen Contingencies

Even more interminable than the Republican debate, and certainly more hot air.  Ugh, I finally turned it off after two and a half hours of their blather.  My impressions?

First, none of them seems to be particularly intelligent.  It's quite odd.  They also tend to be inarticulate, but that follows.  But the apparent inability of any of them to reason deeply should be disturbing... although I suspect their base doesn't notice because the base is similarly unable to reason deeply.  It's all about intentions, moralizing, and condemning opponents as inherently malicious.  After all, why else would anyone oppose "free stuff for everyone?"  Free college, free health care, free time off for mothers, free everything except, of course, free markets and freedom to own firearms.  Good grief.  The worst student I ever had in an economics class knew more economics than all of these boobs combined.

OK, a few observations on each:

Lincoln Chafee: Don Quixote! He's very sincere, honest, remarkably stupid and naïve, and has less chance of winning the Democrat nomination than I do.

James Webb: he struck me as a being a little dopey at times, but perhaps the only serious person up there.  I appreciate that he beat Anderson Cooper when Cooper repeatedly tried to shut him up.  He went so far as to make a half-assed attempt to speak up for our right to defend ourselves with firearms, which went over like a lead balloon with his fellow candidates and the audience.  He's clearly out of synch with today's Democrat party, which opposes self defense by citizens and is sympathetic to criminals.  And he even condemned the Iranian nuclear deal.  Good heavens.  Lincoln Chaffee has a better chance of getting the nomination than Webb does.

Martin O'Malley: an actor, not bad at it sometimes, but at times seems almost psychotic.  And he garbles things more than all the rest of this pack combined: "Back in the 1999's"... "Assad's invasion of Syria"... "we're made stronger by the arrival of new American immigrants"... "big banks are 65% of our GDP"... and so phonily earnest.  Good grief squared.

Bernie Sanders: a hatefilled man, an insane man.  I think he is principled, sort of, but they are bad principles.  I've read several analyses of his views, and all conclude he's a national socialist.  Clearly so -- certainly he is a socialist, and he's a virulent nationalist, opposed to international trade.  Like the original national socialists, he's rabidly green as well.  Unlike the original national socialists, he's not a militarist, but give him time.  Socialism always needs enemies to scapegoat, and when the domestic ones run out or are no longer sufficiently politically expedient...

Hillary Clinton: completely fake, completely evil, unchallenged by Cooper, and still Obama's heir apparent.  None of the others can prevail against her.  The first three have no appeal and no chance at all.  OTOH Sanders does have appeal -- to the ignorant, the destructively radical, and the crazy -- but I think he'll be sabotaged by the party leadership.  He's the Ron Paul of the Democrats, in a sense, and the party will not allow him to get the nomination.  So it's Clinton, except...

I think Obama is out to destroy her.  Obama and Clinton are not friends; the two families are hostile to each other.  The investigation of Clinton's private servers and private email accounts is being permitted to proceed, so unlike the many other scandals surrounding the Obama administration: Fast and Furious and the IRS targeting of political opponents of Obama, to name two.  Clinton may have thought she was getting a great deal in being appointed Secretary of State, but it gave Obama great power over her -- her improper and, let's face it, felonious behavior leaves her vulnerable to him.  He, or Valerie Jarret, or whoever his handlers are, simply have to be careful about how much to leak on Hillary's wrongdoing, and how much to permit it to be investigated.  Certainly many others in the Obama administration, including BO himself, have abused their positions for personal gain, compromised national security, used private email accounts and other tools to hide their behavior, etc.  To protect his legacy, or his dynasty, Obama needs to stop Hillary, but not do too much, certainly not let investigations get so out of hand that he gets caught in them.

One of my colleagues suggested to me today that Obama will destroy Hillary and have Joe Biden run.  Who would Biden's running mate be?  Obama himself, according to my friend.  Nothing in the Constitution precludes this, he says.  The 22nd Amendment says no one can be elected to the Presidency twice.  The 12th Amendment  prohibits anyone from being Vice President who is ineligible to serve as President.  According to some interpreters, someone who is ineligible to be elected President could still be eligible to serve as President, and thus as Vice President.  And then, according to my friend's theory, after a few months in office, Biden will step down, and Obama will enjoy his third term.  Who ever said Obama wasn't a Constitutional scholar?!

I think this is highly unlikely, but these are, after all, the crazy years.  The weasel-wording and leaps of logic required for this interpretation of the Constitution to hold are no worse than those John Roberts used to save Obamacare.  And it is certainly akin to what Putin did with the help of his loyal lapdog Medvedev.  I don't expect it, though.  It strikes me as more likely that Obama will try to force Clinton from the race at some point and replace her with a Biden-Patrick or Biden-Warren ticket.

But all this is idle speculation.  Let's return to reality.  All of these Democrats agree on spend, spend, spend, all agree on disarming citizens, all agree with the "Black Lives Matter movement" that America is a racist nation (well, Hillary was conveniently given a bye on this question).  All are promising destruction.  America will face a sovereign debt crisis if it does not control spending very soon.  Medicare and Medicaid and Social Security will deliver less than promised, no matter what happens.  And the promotion of divisiveness for political purposes, the promotion of free stuff for the unproductive, and the threat to disarm all of us...these things threaten civil peace.  This is the Democrat political platform.

H.L. Mencken argued that American politics is the most entertaining show on earth.  It's black humor to see such crazy and often diabolical people taken seriously as candidates for President, but yes, it is very funny.