Strange Duty of VP Presidential Candidates

Today, Vice President Kamala Harris certified the 2024 election in favor of her opponent, Donald Trump.  She is not the first vice president to have that uncomfortable duty.  Al Gore certified the 2000 election - in which he won the popular vote - for George W Bush.  Hubert Humphrey certified Richard Nixon's 1968 victory.  Nixon could sympathize with Humphrey, having been in the same position in 1960, when he certified his defeat against John F Kennedy.  One has to go back a century to find another sitting VP and failed presidential candidate announcing his opponent's victory.  John C Breckinridge was James Buchanan's VP.  He was one of 3 candidates opposing Lincoln and placed 2nd in the electoral college.  In February 1861, he announced that "Abraham Lincoln, of Illinois, having received a majority of the whole number of electoral votes, is elected President."  He then joined the Confederacy to oppose Lincoln in a less civilized fashion.

By contrast, only two VPs have had the joyous opportunity to preside over a victory.  VP George Bush certified his victory in the 1988 election.  Prior to him, one has to go back to Martin Van Buren who won the 1836 election as Andrew Jackson's VP.

The remaining two men who jumped directly from VP to presidency did so prior to the 12th Amendment.  As Washington's VP, John Adams was elected in 1796, but his opponent, Thomas Jefferson, won the vice-presidency.  The awkwardness of having the president and VP from rival parties brought about the 12th Amendment so that - generally - each party put up their picks for each office.  Thus, in 1800, Adams and Jefferson had a rematch but selected VP candidates; Aaron Burr for Jefferson and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney for Adams.  The Jefferson-Burr ticket won, but both had identical electoral vote totals.  Now Burr argued that he had just as much right to be president as Jefferson.  This triggered a contingent election where the House had to choose, thus denying Jefferson the opportunity to announce his victory.

Do As I Say, Not As I Do

Trump is catching grief for his refusal to say he would accept the election results.  Democrats are horrified.  Pardon me, but wasn't it Al Gore who did exactly that?  He conceded and then withdrew his concession!  Didn't Stuart Smalley demand a recount until enough 'misplaced' ballots appeared to give him the victory over Norm Coleman?  Did Christine Gregoire accept her loss in the gubernatorial election in Washington?  No, she demanded a recount and still lost.  But on the second recount, she won!  And there were no further recounts.  Was it wrong for John Kerry to claim the 2004 election was rigged in Ohio?  It seems Democrats are more than willing to question the outcome on election night but Trump needs to agree not to do the same or he is un-American.  There are those double standards again.

With the WikiLeaks, it has been revealed that the game was rigged against Bernie Sanders.  The party and the media were in the tank for Hillary.  When this was revealed just prior to the Democratic National Convention, Debbie Wasserman Schultz had to resign in disgrace.  Further WikiLeaks dumps have shown again and again that the media is completely in favor of Hillary.  FBI documents have demonstrated that the bureau sought to undermine the possibility of prosecuting Hillary for the email scandal by handing out immunity deals at every step of the investigation.  Then we have the Project Veritas sting videos in which Bob Creamer - who has met with President Obama more than 40 times and been to the White House more than 200 times - was caught discussing how to commit voter fraud.  Creamer's associate brags about causing havoc at Trump rallies, confident that the media will broadcast it as a negative for Trump, which it has.  Even George Will, who is adamantly anti-Trump, says that Trump has a point.

 

Like Al Gore, Christine Gregoire, and Al Franken, Trump should not be asked to accept results in advance of seeing how those results were made.  It was a question that should not have been asked.  Really, remember all those Republicans who offered a pledge to support the eventual nominee?  Only Trump refused.  Look at all the support he is getting from those who took the pledge.  There is no honor among politicians.  Don't trust them!

Welcome to the Apocalypse

When former Vice President Al Gore attended the Sundance Film Festival in January 2006 to premiere his propaganda film, An Inconvenient Truth, he declared that, unless drastic measures were taken regarding greenhouse gasses, the earth would reach a point of no return in ten years.  It has now been ten years.  The doom is now unavoidable.  The ice caps will melt shortly, the polar bears will drown, and NYC will sink into the Atlantic Ocean any second now.  Okay, just a few more seconds.  Hmm.  Well, the standard deviation of the ten year prediction must allow for leeway.

 

Obviously, the claim was just fear-mongering, an effort to convince the electorate to approve 'drastic measures' that would include more money and power to government.  The people didn't bite and now, ten years later, the scam is clearly revealed.  Of course, there will be an excuse.  Perhaps it has already been offered and I have missed it.  Gore's Frying Pan Earth notion has been replaced by Obama's more vague Climate Change.

 

This has been the modus operandi of the environmental movement since the first Earth Day in 1970.  Here is a list of some of those initial predictions.  Note that none of them came to pass.  The catastrophes scheduled for 1975 haves still not occurred even 40 years later.  Global cooling changed to global warming and now it is climate change.

 

If only the government could take more of our money and infringe further on our property rights and freedom, I'm sure the issue could be solved.

Crime? It Depends on Your Party-Affiliation

Remember the Valerie Plame fiasco during the Bush Administration?  Richard Armitage had revealed Ms. Plame's name to Robert Novak.  Novak mentioned it in a column and scandal ensued.  Eventually, we had a Special Prosecutor to investigate this non-crime.  Armitage was never charged with releasing Plame's name because she wasn't a covert agent: no crime.  Still, it was a big deal and Scooter Libby - who did not reveal Plame's name to anyone - was convicted of a felony and fined $250,000.

 

Today, it is becoming increasingly clear that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had classified and top secret data on a private server located in a restroom closet in Denver.  Some of these emails had to be copied from secure servers and transferred to Ms. Clinton's far less secure server.  If someone of lesser status (or a Republican) had done this, there would be an immediate revocation of all security clearances and criminal charges filed.  Thus far, nothing.  Unlike Plame-Gate, crimes were clearly committed.  Where is the Special Prosecutor?

 

Former Governor Rick Perry of Texas is currently under indictment (by a Democrat Prosecutor) for using his veto when he was governor.  Apparently, using his veto - an integral power of his office - was a crime.  This has surely contributed to his failing presidential campaign, which was the point.

 

Lois Lerner of the IRS somehow only allowed one conservative group to get tax-exempt status in the 3 years leading up to the 2012 election.  When Congress sought to look into this anomaly, her emails from that window were reportedly destroyed in a hard drive crash.  When asked to testify on the matter, she invoked her 5th Amendment privilege against self-incrimination.  No charges have been brought against her or anyone at the IRS.

 

Tom DeLay, former Republican Congressman and very effective Majority Leader, was indicted (by a Democrat) for violating election laws.  Because Republicans have standards, DeLay had to step down as majority leader while under indictment (Democrats have no such rules).  He was eventually acquitted in the appeals court (8 - 1 ruling) but his political career was long over by then (again, that was the point).

 

Vice President Al Gore attended a fundraiser at a Buddhist Temple in California where thousands of dollars were funneled from China to the Clinton-Gore reelection campaign (that's a violation of election laws, by the way).  Though some of the foreign fundraisers were charged and convicted, Janet Reno declined to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate the Clinton Administration's part in the crime.

 

A mere whiff of impropriety can torpedo a Republican but a city dump stench of scandal has little impact on Democrats.  This double-standard probably explains the spinelessness that I constantly attribute to Republicans.  However, this is also why - even as a Libertarian - I prefer Republicans.  The press will hammer them and the Democrats will oppose them tooth and nail.  When Democrats are in office, the press cheers them and the Republicans are too scared to oppose them lest they be called racists, sexists, homophobes. or whatnot.