Asleep at the Switch and Constitutional Crisis Up Next

"Nobody can govern, everybody intrigues and plots, and the relation of government with it's adversaries isn't about a fight, but of conspiracy"  - my translation from Portuguese from the book 1822 describing the government of Imperador Don Pedro I in Brazil of the 1820s.

The CBO has come out with scoring showing what a embarrassing farce in real spending the Boehner plans is, no real impact in the next few years, and only $851 billion over ten years.  Incredibly a clueless Presidente Hopium, who has no proposal of his own and apparently has done no real work on one,  has hurriedly already promised to veto the latest Bonehead heavy on spending plan that was just handed to him on a silver platter! This is what the last several weeks of negotiation has been about?  Given the corrupt political and very costly nature of American government one can only attribute this to the extraordinary amount of incompetent negative selection that has been put into play.




Now the Boehner has been sent back to the drawing board, and we move on to who knows what.  This is what happens when negative selection  leadership is too involved with corrupt campaign money raising and conspiracies to even bother to govern.   Do you still think this is just Kabuki theater? Some how this not supposed to add up to a debt default in six days?   The hubris obliviana crowd is nearly 100% convinced so. The burden of proof lays squarely with the bulls at this stage.

Perhaps it won't be exactly a debt default,  but only because it now potentially puts in play another option for the hapless Obama: a constitutional crisis where he overrides the Congress on the debt ceiling  because of "economic necessity".  Although the White House at first blush has taken this 14th Amendment tactic off the table, already former President Clinton has front run this approach in the press.  Some (such as this Salon article) think Obama is too lacking in cajones for this, but really what is the other option? I don't know who I hate and despise more, Hopium or the Republicans, but few Americans, me included will stand by and allow a President to be impeached by Republicans because of this. If anything this could be twisted by Obama into some kind of "profile in courage" farce.

Regardless of any temporary political gain Obama might gain from this, it does promise to be a fiasco. Credit downgrades will follow, and the stage will be set for a long hot summer of atrocious ungovernable behavior, making compromise over fiscal matters impossible.  The political scene in the US is far worse than the consensus imagines, more akin to the quote above describing political conspiracy in  Brazil in the 1820s. The great good that may come out of this bagunca (mess) is the complete utter collapse of the corrupt two party system, and perhaps even some old fashioned street revolution and riots.  Keep your fingers crossed on that front.

Jefferson County, Alabama (Mobile) has a couple one thousand buck an hour bankruptcy lawyers in town this week. Doesn't sound they are there for the weather or the food, as a council session is scheduled for Thursday for the announcement.  This will be the largest muni bankruptcy in US history.