The Week That Was: Buying Delegates in Cleveland, Carson Makes a Threat, Cruz and Trump Have a Spat, Carly Goes Off, and the NRA is Still in Charge

Has anyone else noticed things have become sort of manic when it comes to politics in these United States?

It is certainly easy to believe so. On Monday, 20 some odd GOP heavyweights met for dinner and one of the topics of discussion was how they would handle a brokered convention next summer in Cleveland.

Yeah, it is that weird now days. The last time there was a brokered convention in American politics was 60 years ago and it was the democrats. The republicans haven't had one since 1948 when Thomas Dewey ended up as the candidate of choice.

There will be plenty of denials, but the truth is the Monday evening summit was a direct result of Donald Trump's primacy in the polls. Guys like Reince Priebus and Mitch McConnell are hoping Trump's wild autumn rave will fizzle out over the next few months, but if it doesn't they are desperately praying he won't have enough delegates to turn the convention into just another episode of Celebrity Apprentice.

For those of you not familiar with, the process, if no one walks into Cleveland with a majority on the first ballot all bets are off. The delegates are released to vote for whoever the hell they want, or pays them the most. There is no telling how wild the deal making will get. One can readily see ol' Joe Blow from Kokomo demanding an ambassadorship to someplace like Fiji in exchange for his ballot and--if the timing and circumstances are just right--getting it, providing his guy wins the election.

Ben Carson, who has seen his numbers plummet in the last week, went all conspiracy theory when he heard about the meeting. He issued a statement which, in part, read, "If this was the beginning of a plan to subvert the will of the voters and replace them with the will of the political elite, I assure you Donald Trump won't be the only one leaving the party."

Dr. Carson has a reason to be suspicious. His party has a long and proud history of trying to subvert the will of voters in elections through increasingly restrictive voter ID requirements which are aimed directly at minorities, immigrants and senior citizens--you know--people who don't tend to vote for republicans.

While actually disqualifying republican voters during the primary season would be a tad counterproductive in the long run, buying delegates hand over fist in order to nominate a party establishment guy would come as second nature to the thugs in charge of this coven of werewolves. And let's face it, money won't be a problem for them.

Meanwhile the bromance between Trump and Ted Cruz might be cooling. Apparently Cruz held a get together with some big money donor types and, according to one report, questioned Trump's, "judgment."

Trump, as crassly arrogant as always, tweeted he, "expected an attack soon," from Cruz, but predicted it would fail, "like all the rest."

Cruz, while not entirely backing down tweeted that he won't be dragged into a, "cage match," with El Donald, no matter how much the liberal press wants it.

Then Carly Fiorina went off on CNN the other day after Chris Cuomo suggested the vitriolic campaign leveled at Planned Parenthood might have, somehow, facilitated the deadly Colorado Springs attack against one of their clinics. The whole discussion went off into never never land when it deteriorated into smack talk about the validity of the tape republicans have been saying proves Panned Parenthood sells fetal tissue for profit.

Fiorina borrowed a scene from Trump's script when she told Cuomo, "many experts," claim the tape, which was obviously and clumsily edited had never been altered.

Finally, proving that even in the face of overwhelming xenophobia and fear the NRA still runs the show, republican lawmakers refused to vote for a bill which would stop people who are on the FBI's terrorist watch list from buying guns. That's right, we won't let them on planes, and the ghost of Inspector Erskine might keep track of them, but they still can go out and buy that Bushmaster .223 and untold rounds of ammunition whenever they want.

Yes, we're in a terribly strange place at the moment. And just think, all this hysteria is completely driven by different polling services and the media. Not one American has cast a ballot during a primary, or caucus. We are still over a month and a half away from joining that traveling carnival.

Stay tuned, because, God help us, we've just started on this bizarre and hateful trip.


sic vita est


12-11-15