Paul Ryan: Americas Stinker
Paul Ryan: America's Stinker Christopher Halloran / Shutterstock.com

Something mysterious is afoot! Fresh-faced little dumpling Paul Ryan popped up at some kind of skulduggery-meeting yesterday to talk about doing weird stuff to Donald Trump.

The meeting was convened by billionaire Paul Singer, a man made entirely out of wadded up hundred-dollar bills, at an expensive restaurant in America's most tasteful city, Palm Beach.

The group apparently calles itself the "American Opportunity Alliance," and the security guards were wearing golden trident lapel pins. I had to read these details several times to make sure it was not a summary of a DaVinci Code rip off.

In attendance at the meeting were various GOP politicians and the billionaires who own them, most of whom are intent on stopping Trump. Singer, for example, has dumped a bunch of cash into the "Our Principles PAC," the group paying for a lot of the anti-Trump ads in swing states.

We have no way of knowing what exactly they talked about, but we can probably guess they weren't trading cake recipes. Paul Ryan was present for meetings yesterday, and will deliver some kind of address today along with South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley.

Fundraising is likely to be a topic of interest — there's going to be a lot of rich guys in attendance, and a lot of politicians waiting for their checks and marching orders. But an agenda also indicates that they'll be talking about stopping Obama's Supreme Court nominee, economics, and Benghazi. Yup, they're still talking about Benghazi.

And of course, stopping Trump will almost certainly be a priority.

According to the participants, there's nothing unusual going on, no big deal, just some of the most powerful people in the world meeting secretly to talk about nothing in particular.

“This shouldn't be construed as an anti-Trump event and that's certainly not why Speaker Ryan is going,” said an unnamed aide in Paul Ryan's office. I can't think of a more trustworthy source.

It seems pretty clear that Paul Ryan isn't gunning for some kind of rule-twist that would allow him to join the presidential race — he's said explicitly that he won't run. But there's some wild speculation from some amateur pundits that the GOP might run a third-party candidate, fracturing the votes three ways between Hillary and Trump and whoever they run. And then if they were able to siphon off enough votes from the two mainstream candidates, Congress gets to appoint whoever they want to be president. So Paul Ryan (or anyone else, really) could wind up becoming president without ever having to run.

Remember when you were a kid and you'd learn about civics with the assumption that American democracy is the best political system in the world? Haha. I wonder if teachers bother trying to make that case anymore.