Mike Pence: Almost as bad as Trump but he might not get us killed

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, GrumpyGran said:

I'm laughing about the cartoon in the Political Cartoons thread where Mikey looks like an undertaker.

Seriously, if I walked into a funeral home and he was the undertaker, I'd turn around and walk out. He is scary-movie scary to me.

That cartoon made me giggle uncontrollably for a while. I hadn't thought about it before I saw the cartoon, but it so fits. And, yes, I am with you, I'd walk out of any funeral home where I saw him lurking.  It's unbelievable that he's only 59 years old. To me, he looks like he's somewhere between 75 and 200.

[AnywhereButHere]

@GrumpyGran I call him a creepy Leslie Nielsen!

[fraurosena]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

That cartoon made me giggle uncontrollably for a while. I hadn't thought about it before I saw the cartoon, but it so fits. And, yes, I am with you, I'd walk out of any funeral home where I saw him lurking.  It's unbelievable that he's only 59 years old. To me, he looks like he's somewhere between 75 and 200.

You're kidding! Wowsers. He does not age well, does he?

Oh, and he reminds me of Lurch, from the Addams family.

 

[GrumpyGran]

He's a reaper. Of course.

[Zola]

Did anybody ever watch that cartoon show called King of the Hill? Mike Pence looks exactly like Hank Hill's dad, Cotton Hill.

[MarblesMom]

WOW I cannot believe Pence is only 7 years older than I am.... holy crap.  

Moisturize, moisturize.  Sunscreen.

 

[candygirl200413]

Wait we didn't talk about whoever randomly hacked onto Pence's website?!

http://www.officialmikepence.com/issues/

Just play around, it's so great

[apple1]

9 hours ago, MarblesMom said:

WOW I cannot believe Pence is only 7 years older than I am.... holy crap.  

Moisturize, moisturize.  Sunscreen.

 

It's probably mostly genetic ...

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, apple1 said:

It's probably mostly genetic ...

Plus harboring fear and hatred of those not like himself. All that frowning in disapproval sets in the wrinkles.

 

From Jennifer Rubin: "They could have Pence as president, for heaven’s sake"

Spoiler

Republicans do not have to wake up each morning afraid of what the president has tweeted. They do not have to fret that the special counsel will find damning evidence of collusion with Russia, obstruction of justice or other criminal or impeachable behavior. They do not have to worry that they’ll accomplish absolutely nothing before facing the voters in 2018. They do not have to dread that a presidential temper tantrum will get us into a war, or force a humiliating retreat. They need not fear that the president of their own party will attack them, or even back a primary challenge against them. They could have a normal president. They could have their party back.

In short, a significant portion of elected Republicans have clearly figured out that a President Pence would be highly preferable to President Trump. Whatever virtues they thought Trump had, those never materialized, and seven months of nerve-racking White House histrionics and dysfunction have left them mentally and emotionally exhausted.

Behind closed doors and in whispered cloakroom conversations, most elected Republicans acknowledge that Trump is a menace, a danger to the party and to the country. If they had any doubts, this week should have confirmed, as Rick Wilson put it, that “there are a lot of reasons that GOP Trumpism won’t work, but the biggest one is this: Donald Trump hates you.”

So, yes, most Republicans in Congress would prefer a stable, very conservative president who once served in the House and governed a red state. All they have to do is get Trump out of there and the Pence presidency can begin. Well, sure, but how is that going to happen?

We don’t imagine that a quick divorce from Trump is possible. But after a few more months of outbursts, legislation botched by the White House and nail-biting confrontation with North Korea, Trump’s poll numbers could plunge to 30 percent or lower, with considerable erosion in the GOP base. Especially if we see more disturbing evidence of potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russian officials and/or alarming evidence of possible obstruction of justice, the moment might be ripe to cut the cord.

The first approach would be to present an untenable choice. Republicans can decide maybe they should have hearings and consider the emoluments problem after all. Mind you, the president can stay president — or he can keep his foreign earnings. Not both. Likewise, Republicans can pass by veto-proof majorities a requirement for presidents to release their tax returns before the 2020 election. Hey, Trump can stay president and run again — or he can keep his tax returns secret. Not both. Then there are the nepotism laws. Perhaps they need to be clarified and strengthened. Beginning in, say, 2018, no presidential child, sibling or spouse can have an official job title, a White House office or a security clearance. Trump can stay, of course. But he’d have to operate without Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump at his side. He can be president — or he can keep his children close to help him through his work. Not both.

The second choice is impeachment, of course, which no longer seems far-fetched. Much hinges on what special counsel Robert S. Mueller III finds, but with a squad of lawyers, a ton of witnesses and Trump’s second-rate defense counsel, do we really think Mueller will come up completely dry? A month ago, it would have been hard to imagine Republicans initiating impeachment. Now, the American people are quite convinced that the Russia matter is no hoax. The Hill reports:

A CNN poll conducted by SSRS found 70 percent of respondents think the Russia probe should include Trump’s finances. A majority, 60 percent, also says the Russia probe is a serious matter, compared to 38 percent who think it is an attempt to discredit the current president. Americans, by a 59 percent to 31 percent margin, do not approve of the way Trump is handling the investigation, pollsters found.

If Trump starts refusing to cooperate and/or starts granting pardons, one can imagine the country collectively screaming: “Enough!” If Mueller makes a referral to the House for impeachment, Republicans might feel that they have no choice but to proceed. (And certainly if the Democrats take the House, they will initiate impeachment hearings.) Even the start of judiciary hearings might be enough to induce Trump to high-tail it out of there.

And that brings us to the possibility that Trump might decide he has had enough. With Trump, it’s not impossible to imagine that he could convince himself that he has accomplished more in nine months (!) than most presidents have in eight years. (Stick with me.) Leave on top — illegal immigration crossings down, stock market high, unemployment low. Why let the mainstream media, the special counsel and those darned coastal elites tear him down, badger his family, etc. ? Hand the baton to Pence, and let him implement all of the plans Trump has set in place. Win! Trump can then go brag about the millions he made off the presidency.

Republicans have not been able to wrap their heads around the idea of ditching Trump. Given recent events, if Republicans were given a secret ballot to choose Trump or Pence as president for the remainder of  Trump’s term, Pence would surely win in a landslide. The “good” news is that Trump never thought he’d be president and is having a terrible time in the role. The trick is applying enough pressure, raising the prospect of impeachment or financial exposure so that he will conclude he can leave office before 2020 as a winner, and more important, keep his wealth intact and under wraps.

I don't agree with her enthusiasm for a President Lurch, but she's right about ways to push out the orange menace.

[Zola]

10 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

Wait we didn't talk about whoever randomly hacked onto Pence's website?!

http://www.officialmikepence.com/issues/

Just play around, it's so great

Okay, now that is damn hilarious. I especially liked "Coming soon: Russian translation"

[GreyhoundFan]

"Mike Pence and the art of staying clean"

Spoiler

Vice President Mike Pence has so far avoided being dragged into the muck of the Russia probes that have engulfed President Donald Trump, his top aides and his family members. It’s no accident.

Unlike his boss, Pence’s Twitter feed is silent about a “Russia hoax” and “witch hunts.” He’s denied having knowledge of critical discrepancies in Michael Flynn’s story — gaps that have landed the former national security adviser in prosecutors’ crosshairs. And he’s taken pains to note he wasn’t even part of the Trump ticket at a controversial June 2016 meeting where a Kremlin-linked lawyer offered dirt on Hillary Clinton in a meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.

The Vice President's office has also instituted strict rules against speaking to the press, and any staffers have to clear it with Pence’s new chief of staff, Nick Ayers, his communications director or press secretary before talking to reporters. And unlike in the West Wing, where staffers have taken to slinging arrows and airing unattributed grievances through the media, the rules have held firm in Pence's orbit, where infighting is rare.

While Pence has become known for his aw-shucks persona, the former Indiana governor and longtime congressman is also a cunning politician who has developed a playbook for staying clean over his decades in the spotlight.

Ryan Streeter, who served as Pence’s deputy chief of staff when he was governor, said Pence has a way of creating “barriers” between himself and wrongdoing, or even the appearance of wrongdoing.

Streeter said Pence used to tell staffers: “If there’s a line you don’t want to cross, you don’t even walk up to it — you stop three feet in front of it.”

“He possesses the judgment to stay away from things that can create problems later,” Streeter said about Pence’s time as governor, which included his controversial flip on a religious freedom bill but was generally scandal-free.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Pence has stayed squeaky clean in the White House – or that he will be able to stay out of the Russia scandal as the probes intensify. At the very least, he will be a target for investigators eager to question key players in Trump’s orbit.

“He’s in the middle of something, even though he may not be in the middle of it,” said Stanley Brand, a white-collar defense lawyer who represented George Stephanopolous during the special counsel investigations into President Bill Clinton’s Whitewater land deals.

Politically, Pence’s credibility on the Russia probe has taken some hits — especially when his answers on Russia have been contradicted by facts that later emerged. “Where he’s gotten himself in trouble is making statements defending Trump, then having other facts come out,” said William Jeffress, a white-collar attorney who represented Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, during the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation.

The contradictions have happened more than once. Pence said during the transition, for example, that Flynn had not discussed sanctions during calls with the Russian ambassador. That was later revealed to be untrue, and Pence pleaded ignorance.

Pence also defended Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey by pointing to the recommendations made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein that were widely circulated by the White House. But Trump soon announced he would have fired Comey regardless of the recommendation, again landing Pence in an awkward spot.

And despite Pence’s attempts to steer clear of Russia-related landmines in the White House, his mere proximity to Trump and presence in the West Wing makes him of keen interest to investigators – and it’s unknown what the questioning could uncover.

“All the senior staff are potential grand jury witnesses,” said Adam Goldberg, a former Clinton White House special associate counsel.

Pence, for example, can eventually expect to face a range of questions from special counsel Robert Mueller and others investigating the Russia probe over conversations he had during the transition period with Flynn, as well as Trump’s firing of Comey.

On the Flynn front, there is a record showing Pence got a heads up about some of the retired lieutenant’s controversies through his role leading the Trump post-election transition, even though he previously claimed he wasn’t aware of the activities.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent Pence a letter on Nov. 18 raising alarm about Flynn’s conflicts of interest, namely his work lobbying on behalf of the Turkey government and his December 2015 paid trip to Moscow. The transition team that Pence led acknowledged the letter 10 days later.

But in early March, Pence told Fox News that he was just learning of Flynn’s lobbying activities. “Well, let me say, hearing that story today was the first I’d heard of it,” he said.

Pence being caught unaware also doesn’t square with a Feb. 19 interview then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus gave to NBC where he was asked about Flynn’s firing — and the two-plus week gap between the White House knowing about the national security adviser’s remarks to Pence concerning sanctions and his firing.

“The vice president is in the loop on everything,” Priebus replied.

With Comey, Pence can expect to face questions from federal and congressional investigators about what he was told by the president both before and after Trump pulled the FBI director aside in the Oval Office after a Feb. 14 meeting that had included the vice president, Priebus, Sessions and Kushner. He’s also likely to be questioned in the obstruction of justice investigation centering on Comey’s firing, given that his statement about the justification clashed with Trump’s.

There’s another reason Pence may be called to answer questions. In multiple interviews, he’s dismissed any contact between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddlers.

“Of course not,” Pence said in a mid-January interview with CBS just days before the inauguration. “And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”

“All the contact by the Trump campaign and associates were with the American people,” he told Fox News Sunday that same day.

Recognizing the legal stakes ahead, Pence has hired a prominent lawyer, Richard Cullen, a former Virginia attorney general and U.S. attorney under President George H.W. Bush. But still unclear is how the vice president will pay for the help.

Pence is hardly wealthy. As vice president, he’s making $230,700 a year, which comes on top of his May 2017 financial disclosure that show he was making $109,749 a year as Indiana governor, along with three state pensions for retirement. His wife had no income and his own bank account had between $1,001 and $15,000. Pence also had at least $105,000 in student loan debt for his children’s education.

Jarrod Agen, who recently got a promotion from communications director to deputy chief of staff, said Pence had ruled out using taxpayer funds or money raised through his political action committee to pay for his lawyer.

Legal experts say they don’t think Pence’s legal bills have gotten too big at this early stage of the process. To start, Pence likely has provided documents to his lawyer but hasn’t spent much time preparing to give testimony or answer questions under oath. “You can get to $10,000 real quick and even $50,000. But I don’t see Pence as incurring some huge legal bill,” Jeffress said.

Pence has made one significant move that could signal an awareness of the perilous political path ahead. He recently replaced his longtime aide and chief of staff Josh Pitcock with Ayers, a 34-year-old Republican operative from Georgia who was a top Pence aide during the 2016 campaign.

The move seemed to show that, in Trump’s Washington, there’s more of a premium on the skills of a political knife-fighter than a policy wonk. Trump’s White House, after all, does remain under a state of siege over the Russia probe, and the talk that the president could fire Mueller prompted Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to recently warn that such a move could be the “beginning of the end” of the Trump administration.

Pence is not, however, in an entirely unprecedented position.

Past vice presidents from Gerald Ford to George H.W. Bush and Al Gore can attest to the challenge of maintaining one’s personal political fortune — and limiting legal liability — while also demonstrating loyalty to a president caught in serious scandal.

Robert Bennett, a white-collar attorney who represented President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones cases, said Pence appears to be doing a fine job of navigating the situation — so far.

“He appears to be out of the news, so somebody is doing something right,” Bennett said. “There’s an old expression: ‘Mushrooms don’t get hit by lightning’—that’s because they grow underground.”

Hey, he is like a mushroom, we could start calling him 'Shroom, instead of VP.

[GrumpyGran]

51 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Mike Pence and the art of staying clean"

  Reveal hidden contents

Vice President Mike Pence has so far avoided being dragged into the muck of the Russia probes that have engulfed President Donald Trump, his top aides and his family members. It’s no accident.

Unlike his boss, Pence’s Twitter feed is silent about a “Russia hoax” and “witch hunts.” He’s denied having knowledge of critical discrepancies in Michael Flynn’s story — gaps that have landed the former national security adviser in prosecutors’ crosshairs. And he’s taken pains to note he wasn’t even part of the Trump ticket at a controversial June 2016 meeting where a Kremlin-linked lawyer offered dirt on Hillary Clinton in a meeting with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort.

The Vice President's office has also instituted strict rules against speaking to the press, and any staffers have to clear it with Pence’s new chief of staff, Nick Ayers, his communications director or press secretary before talking to reporters. And unlike in the West Wing, where staffers have taken to slinging arrows and airing unattributed grievances through the media, the rules have held firm in Pence's orbit, where infighting is rare.

While Pence has become known for his aw-shucks persona, the former Indiana governor and longtime congressman is also a cunning politician who has developed a playbook for staying clean over his decades in the spotlight.

Ryan Streeter, who served as Pence’s deputy chief of staff when he was governor, said Pence has a way of creating “barriers” between himself and wrongdoing, or even the appearance of wrongdoing.

Streeter said Pence used to tell staffers: “If there’s a line you don’t want to cross, you don’t even walk up to it — you stop three feet in front of it.”

“He possesses the judgment to stay away from things that can create problems later,” Streeter said about Pence’s time as governor, which included his controversial flip on a religious freedom bill but was generally scandal-free.

That doesn’t mean, however, that Pence has stayed squeaky clean in the White House – or that he will be able to stay out of the Russia scandal as the probes intensify. At the very least, he will be a target for investigators eager to question key players in Trump’s orbit.

“He’s in the middle of something, even though he may not be in the middle of it,” said Stanley Brand, a white-collar defense lawyer who represented George Stephanopolous during the special counsel investigations into President Bill Clinton’s Whitewater land deals.

Politically, Pence’s credibility on the Russia probe has taken some hits — especially when his answers on Russia have been contradicted by facts that later emerged. “Where he’s gotten himself in trouble is making statements defending Trump, then having other facts come out,” said William Jeffress, a white-collar attorney who represented Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, during the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation.

The contradictions have happened more than once. Pence said during the transition, for example, that Flynn had not discussed sanctions during calls with the Russian ambassador. That was later revealed to be untrue, and Pence pleaded ignorance.

Pence also defended Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey by pointing to the recommendations made by Attorney General Jeff Sessions and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein that were widely circulated by the White House. But Trump soon announced he would have fired Comey regardless of the recommendation, again landing Pence in an awkward spot.

And despite Pence’s attempts to steer clear of Russia-related landmines in the White House, his mere proximity to Trump and presence in the West Wing makes him of keen interest to investigators – and it’s unknown what the questioning could uncover.

“All the senior staff are potential grand jury witnesses,” said Adam Goldberg, a former Clinton White House special associate counsel.

Pence, for example, can eventually expect to face a range of questions from special counsel Robert Mueller and others investigating the Russia probe over conversations he had during the transition period with Flynn, as well as Trump’s firing of Comey.

On the Flynn front, there is a record showing Pence got a heads up about some of the retired lieutenant’s controversies through his role leading the Trump post-election transition, even though he previously claimed he wasn’t aware of the activities.

Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, sent Pence a letter on Nov. 18 raising alarm about Flynn’s conflicts of interest, namely his work lobbying on behalf of the Turkey government and his December 2015 paid trip to Moscow. The transition team that Pence led acknowledged the letter 10 days later.

But in early March, Pence told Fox News that he was just learning of Flynn’s lobbying activities. “Well, let me say, hearing that story today was the first I’d heard of it,” he said.

Pence being caught unaware also doesn’t square with a Feb. 19 interview then-White House chief of staff Reince Priebus gave to NBC where he was asked about Flynn’s firing — and the two-plus week gap between the White House knowing about the national security adviser’s remarks to Pence concerning sanctions and his firing.

“The vice president is in the loop on everything,” Priebus replied.

With Comey, Pence can expect to face questions from federal and congressional investigators about what he was told by the president both before and after Trump pulled the FBI director aside in the Oval Office after a Feb. 14 meeting that had included the vice president, Priebus, Sessions and Kushner. He’s also likely to be questioned in the obstruction of justice investigation centering on Comey’s firing, given that his statement about the justification clashed with Trump’s.

There’s another reason Pence may be called to answer questions. In multiple interviews, he’s dismissed any contact between the Trump campaign and Russian election meddlers.

“Of course not,” Pence said in a mid-January interview with CBS just days before the inauguration. “And I think to suggest that is to give credence to some of these bizarre rumors that have swirled around the candidacy.”

“All the contact by the Trump campaign and associates were with the American people,” he told Fox News Sunday that same day.

Recognizing the legal stakes ahead, Pence has hired a prominent lawyer, Richard Cullen, a former Virginia attorney general and U.S. attorney under President George H.W. Bush. But still unclear is how the vice president will pay for the help.

Pence is hardly wealthy. As vice president, he’s making $230,700 a year, which comes on top of his May 2017 financial disclosure that show he was making $109,749 a year as Indiana governor, along with three state pensions for retirement. His wife had no income and his own bank account had between $1,001 and $15,000. Pence also had at least $105,000 in student loan debt for his children’s education.

Jarrod Agen, who recently got a promotion from communications director to deputy chief of staff, said Pence had ruled out using taxpayer funds or money raised through his political action committee to pay for his lawyer.

Legal experts say they don’t think Pence’s legal bills have gotten too big at this early stage of the process. To start, Pence likely has provided documents to his lawyer but hasn’t spent much time preparing to give testimony or answer questions under oath. “You can get to $10,000 real quick and even $50,000. But I don’t see Pence as incurring some huge legal bill,” Jeffress said.

Pence has made one significant move that could signal an awareness of the perilous political path ahead. He recently replaced his longtime aide and chief of staff Josh Pitcock with Ayers, a 34-year-old Republican operative from Georgia who was a top Pence aide during the 2016 campaign.

The move seemed to show that, in Trump’s Washington, there’s more of a premium on the skills of a political knife-fighter than a policy wonk. Trump’s White House, after all, does remain under a state of siege over the Russia probe, and the talk that the president could fire Mueller prompted Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham to recently warn that such a move could be the “beginning of the end” of the Trump administration.

Pence is not, however, in an entirely unprecedented position.

Past vice presidents from Gerald Ford to George H.W. Bush and Al Gore can attest to the challenge of maintaining one’s personal political fortune — and limiting legal liability — while also demonstrating loyalty to a president caught in serious scandal.

Robert Bennett, a white-collar attorney who represented President Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky and Paula Jones cases, said Pence appears to be doing a fine job of navigating the situation — so far.

“He appears to be out of the news, so somebody is doing something right,” Bennett said. “There’s an old expression: ‘Mushrooms don’t get hit by lightning’—that’s because they grow underground.”

Hey, he is like a mushroom, we could start calling him 'Shroom, instead of VP.

'Shroom. I like that! And it lines up with his complexion!

He is really walking a fine line, isn't he. And probably not happy about how hard it is to avoid the shit storm when you hang out with Trump. Speaking of which, why do you think he is always right there? It's like they're joined at the hip now. Is Trump keeping him close so he can't go off and campaign? Or is Pence gathering information for a upcoming coup?

[Cartmann99]

7 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Hey, he is like a mushroom, we could start calling him 'Shroom, instead of VP

I've read that some varieties of mushrooms grow well on animal manure. 

[GreyhoundFan]

One can only dream: "If Trump goes down, Pence will too"

Spoiler

When Al Gore became vice president, legendary scholar Richard Neustadt — one of Gore’s former professors — sent him a memo with advice. One sentence stuck with me: “The White House staff lives in the present, the VP’s staff in the future.”

Other than presiding over the Senate and breaking its ties, the Constitution gives the vice president only one duty: wait. It would be inhuman to expect anyone ambitious enough to become vice president to undertake that duty passively. It would be irresponsible for any vice president not to devote some time to thinking about “what if.” But it has been taboo for the vice president to use his rectangular office in the West Wing for such “future”-oriented activities in a way that casts a shadow over the “present” activities in the oval-shaped one down the hall.

Thus, reports that Vice President Pence is going beyond mere “active waiting,” to making moves to position himself to run if President Trump does not seek reelection, have created controversy. Though the vice president’s office has denied that any conclusions should be drawn from his reported actions, it has not disputed many of the specifics, including a trip to Iowa, meetings with major donors and establishing a political action committee. In the ensuing hoopla, Pence has been portrayed as gauchely overeager, like a diner in a fancy restaurant leaning over and asking a stranger, “Are you going to finish that?”

As the only former chief of staff to two vice presidents, I think this reaction has been misguided in two critical respects.

First, what Pence is doing is not beyond the pale for an ambitious vice president. While the last two sitting vice presidents to run for president — George H.W. Bush and Al Gore — were a bit more discreet, they nonetheless began politicking with party insiders, donors and early-primary-state muckety-mucks from their earliest days in office. Even during Bill Clinton’s first term, it was hard to find an Iowa county chair, New Hampshire legislator or DNC finance committee member who had not gotten a birthday call from Gore. Bush’s handwritten notes to political insiders were legendary and ubiquitous.

Moreover, there is a strong logic to undertaking such activity early in a president’s tenure. Vice-presidential stroking of party egos spares the president the need to do such pedestrian politicking himself. A vice president operating under the presidential mantle does build long-term relations and accumulates long-term chits for his own benefit, but also creates political capital that the administration can leverage in the here and now. Working to boost candidates in midterm elections likewise serves both “present” and “future” agendas. In this way, nothing Pence has been doing on the political front should give Trump any heartburn.

At the same time, however, it is likewise a mistake to assume any of this will do Pence any good if Trump’s presidency collapses. In the 213 years since the 12th Amendment created our system of joint presidential-vice-presidential tickets, no vice president has been elected to the highest office after serving with a president who declined to seek, or was defeated in seeking, a second elected term. And as for coming to office via the president’s ouster, the only vice president to follow that path, Gerald Ford, lost when he campaigned to retain the office — and he had far less to do with President Richard M. Nixon’s scandals than Pence does with the mess around Trump.

This is the vice-presidential prisoner’s dilemma: There is no distance he can achieve, no political support he can muster, no congressional chits he can collect, no donor base he can assemble that can survive the fallout from a failed presidency. A vice president is either implicated as being in the loop or looks foolish if he insists that he was out of it. There’s too much video of any vice president praising, promoting and partnering with his boss to say, “President who?”

A vice president’s record behind the scenes in the administration is, by definition, obscure to voters. As a result, for better or worse, a vice president must run on the president’s record: If Trump’s record is bad enough to prevent him from running in 2020, it will flatten Pence as well.

If Pence seeks the presidency in 2020 because Trump has been forced out of office, or pressured not to run for reelection due to unpopularity, he will suffer the same fate as Hubert Humphrey in 1968, Ford in 1976, Walter Mondale in 1984 and Dan Quayle in 2000: defeat. Nothing Pence is doing now will break him out of a political imprisonment of his own creation.

 

[candygirl200413]

He is in Colombia or was earlier today and they kept asking him (this was on MSNBC) about whether or not fuckface did a real great job of denouncing the Nazis and he just couldn't confirmed no matter how hard he was pressed.  Adds to the list about why he is such a trash person.

[AmazonGrace]

I was wondering if something is going on soon  but perhaps Mother just told him to get back.

 

[GrumpyGran]

8 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

I was wondering if something is going on soon  but perhaps Mother just told him to get back.

 

He just made some weird statement about Trump has been clear and so has he. Says he spoke at length about it Sunday and stands by what he said but also stands by the president. Did he say he supports Nazis on Sunday? But coming home early because...?

[onekidanddone]

On 8/12/2017 at 11:32 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Hey, he is like a mushroom, we could start calling him 'Shroom, instead of VP.

Mushrooms grow in soil. Pence is filthy as hell

[Cartmann99]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

I was wondering if something is going on soon  but perhaps Mother just told him to get back.

Wait, he went without Mother? I thought he couldn't be trusted on his own?

[onekidanddone]

3 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

I was wondering if something is going on soon  but perhaps Mother just told him to get back.

Maybe he is hoping for a job offer.

[GrumpyGran]

30 minutes ago, Cartmann99 said:

Wait, he went without Mother? I thought he couldn't be trusted on his own?

She went with him. Or I assume it was her, I wouldn't know her if she bit me.

11 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Maybe he is hoping for a job offer.

This. Wouldn't want to keep people waiting just in case somebody needs to swear in another president!

[onekidanddone]

12 minutes ago, GrumpyGran said:

She went with him. Or I assume it was her, I wouldn't know her if she bit me.

Look for a 50ish woman in a denim skirt look up at him with complete adoration, nodding at everything he says and keeping completely silent.

[candygirl200413]

Pence responds to Trump remarks: 'I stand with the president'

Quote

Vice President Pence on Wednesday said he stands by President Trump following criticism of his remarks blaming the violence during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville, Va., on “both sides.”

“What happened in Charlottesville was a tragedy, and the president has been clear on this tragedy and so have I,” Pence told reporters on Wednesday. “I spoke at length about this heartbreaking situation on Sunday night in Colombia, and I stand with the president and I stand by those words.”

Pence was responding to a reporter's question about Trump's remarks on Charlottesville, where white nationalists held a rally and were met by counterprotesters. The reporter also asked Pence about Trump's claim that there were "fine people" on both sides.

Pence added that his family is praying for Heather Heyer, the 32-year-old woman who was killed in Charlottesville, and for the country.

Heyer was killed when a man with ties to right-wing groups allegedly drove his car into a crowd of counterprotesters.

"Our hearts are in Charlottesville," said Pence.

Pence spoke to reporters from Chile, the latest stop on a South American trip. The vice president, though, is cutting short the trip and is returning to the U.S. ahead of schedule on Thursday.

Trump was widely criticized by both Democrats and Republicans on Tuesday after he doubled down on his assertion that white nationalists and counterprotesters were both to blame for the violence at the rally, which was held to protest the removal of a Confederate statue.

At an impromptu press conference in Trump Tower, the president accused left-wing protesters of attacking white nationalists with "clubs." 

“What about the alt-left that came charging at the — as you say, the alt-right?” Trump asked. “Do they have any semblance of guilt? What about the fact they came charging with clubs in their hands, swinging clubs? Do they have any problem? I think they do. As far as I am concerned, that was a horrible, horrible day.”

Trump's comments drew praise drew praise from David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader who attended Saturday’s rally.

“Thank you President Trump for your honesty & courage to tell the truth about #Charlottesville & condemn the leftist terrorists in BLM/Antifa,” Duke tweeted. 

Personally if I was the Hayer family I would tell him to dropped Heather's name from his prayers cause he is such a trash individual.

[Gobsmacked]

On 12 August 2017 at 3:30 AM, MarblesMom said:

WOW I cannot believe Pence is only 7 years older than I am.... holy crap.  

Moisturize, moisturize.  Sunscreen.

 

He is 2 years older than me but looks my Dad's  age. My Dad is a young 82.

[Childless]

Of course he stands with Trump.  He's a racist little shit just like his boss.