Tag: Mike Pence

Here’s why we should be prepared for a President Mike Pence

AlterNet logoRepublican strategist Liz Mair ponders who will become the heir to Trump after he leaves office, but she never mentions Mike Pence. It seems like a pretty glaring oversight to me.

Since FDR passed away in 1945, we’ve had twelve presidents. Five of them (Truman, LBJ, Nixon, Ford, and Poppy Bush) were vice presidents before they took over the helm in the Oval Office. It’s true that three of the five took office due to death or resignation, but death and resignation (as well as impeachment and conviction) are ever-present possibilities. It’s clear that vice presidents are more likely to become president than people holding any other position. The fact that Joe Biden is currently the poll-leader among the Democratic candidates just reinforces this point.

Of course, there are no guarantees. Dan Quayle could never get any traction for a presidential bid. And just because you win the nomination, as Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale, and Al Gore did, doesn’t mean that you’ll ever be president.

View the complete June 26 article by Martin Longman from Washington Monthly on the AlterNet website here.

‘Part of the stench’: CNN’s Anderson Cooper skewers Mike Pence for ‘awkwardly chuckling’ at talk of neglected migrant kids

AlterNet logoWhile Presiden Donald Trump has been trying to drum up fears about a crisis driven by waves of immigrants trying to invade the United States, the real crisis is a humanitarian one that forced many asylum seekers from Central America to leave their homes in the first place. And that humanitarian crisis continues on American soil in the camps and detention centers where children and others are being held in horrendous conditions, as many recent reports have documented.

CNN”s Anderson Cooper reflected on the crisis and the administration’s attempts to shift the blame to others on his show Tuesday night.

He noted that, in one powerful piece by the New York Times documenting the unsanitary and unsafe conditions of the migrants are forced to live in, Director of Columbia Law School’s Immigrant Rights Clinic Elora Mukherjee said, “There is a stench.” The children at these facilities were unable to clean themselves, she explained, though Cooper noted that the “stench” is also a metaphor for the administration’s disastrous handling of the situation.

View the complete June 26 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Jake Tapper laughs in Pence’s face: ‘We don’t have the cleanest air and water in the world’

AlterNet logoOn CNN this morning, Mike Pence tried to summon as much gravitas as he could — veering dangerously close to the event horizon of fatally constipated — in order to sell a few of those common-sense homespun lies that play so well in the heartland.

He sounded like an ass — but, significantly, not a braying ass like his Sith Lord. He simply sounded like a “Christian” greasing the skids for the destruction of God’s creation.

In the wake of the Trump administration’s rollback last week of President Obama’s Clean Power Plan, Jake Tapper asked Pence if he thinks climate change is a threat to our country.

View the complete June 23 article from Aldous Pennyfarthing from Daily Kos on the AlterNet website here.

Evangelical Christian Mike Pence defends imprisoning children without soap or toothbrushes

AlterNet logoChildren in immigrant detention centers are reportedly going without basic supplies like soap and toothbrushes but Vice President Mike Pence insisted on Sunday that it’s the fault of Congress.

During an interview on CNN, host Jake Tapper asked the vice president to “talk about the kids” who have been detained for crossing the border.

“Last week, legal advocates reported there are horrific conditions for children at the border,” Tapper said, pointing to reports that say children have gone without soap, toothbrushes and other itemsneeded for basic hygiene.

View the complete June 23 article by David Edwards from Raw Story on the AlterNet website here.

‘Vetting disaster’: Here are the details behind the mind-blowing connection between a former Pence security advisor and an admitted Russian agent

AlterNet logoMSNBC’s Rachel Maddow has had much to say this week about Republicans and the vetting process. And having chastised the GOP over domestic violence allegations involving former Acting Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan, Maddow turned her attention to Vice President Mike Pence and another “vetting disaster” on Wednesday night — taking him to taskfor failing to vet his former national security advisor, Andrea L. Thompson (now serving as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs). Maddow noted that Thompson has had close relationships with admitted Russia agent Maria Butina as well as with Butina’s boyfriend, veteran GOP activist Paul Erickson — and that Thompson’s connection to Butina and Erickson was detailed by the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin in a June 19 report.

“The Marina Butina story is just nuts,” Maddow asserted, describing Butina’s connection to Russian government officials and her efforts to infiltrate and influence the National Rifle Association (NRA) and the Republican Party in favor of Russia. Maddow, describing Rogin’s Post report, noted that in June 2017, Butina “turned up at the wedding of Mike Pence’s national advisor” — and Erickson “was officiating the wedding.” Continue reading “‘Vetting disaster’: Here are the details behind the mind-blowing connection between a former Pence security advisor and an admitted Russian agent”

Trump Delayed Pence’s Tiananmen Square Speech in Hopes of Landing Xi Meeting

Vice President Mike Pence was set to deliver a speech criticizing China’s human rights record on June 4, the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre — until Donald Trump stepped in.

The president delayed the speech to avoid upsetting Beijing ahead of a potential meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping at the Group of 20 meeting in Japan at the end of this month, according to several people familiar with the matter. Trump also put off U.S. sanctions on Chinese surveillance companies that Pence planned to preview in his remarks.

The speech was tentatively rescheduled for June 24, just days before the Osaka summit. But with Beijing signaling that Xi might not agree to a meeting, there is now debate within the administration about when Pence should deliver the speech and how hard he should be on the Chinese.

View the complete June 14 article by Jenny Leonard and Jennifer Jacobs on the Bloomberg News website here.

Pence’s ‘Indiana Mafia’ Guts Funding For Women’s Health Care

It turns out Vice President Mike Pence has been up to something other than praising Trump’s “broad shoulders.”

Pence has been quietly working behind the scenes to carry out the Trump administration’s goal of gutting funding for women’s health care — which he helped accomplish by installing allies from his days as governor of Indiana, which Politico described as a “cadre of officials that one HHS official called ‘Indiana mafia.’”

Installing allies whom he had relationships with back in Indiana — such as Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, Surgeon General Jerome Adams, and Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator Seema Verma — have helped Pence push for one of his key priorities: defunding Planned Parenthood.

View the complete article by Emily Singer on the National Memo website here.

Watch: Dozens walk out in protest as Mike Pence speaks at evangelical Christian college commencement

Pence told graduates to “be prepared to stand up,” but some had already had – and walked out.

Vice President Mike Pence was the target of an organized protest at one of the nation’s oldest evangelical Christian colleges. Dozens of students and faculty members walked out on the Vice President as he prepared to deliver the commencement address at Taylor University, in Pence’s home state of Indiana on Saturday.

At issue for some of the graduating class are Pence’s conservative Christian views, WTHR reports.

True to form, Pence offered an extremist Christian message to Class of 2019 graduates.

View the complete May 20 post by David Badash from the New Civil Rights Movement on the AlterNet website here.

Conservative writer explains why others on the right wing ‘are nuts’ to still support Trump — and they must really hate Mike Pence

Conservative John Ziegler can still be shocked that others who identify with his ideology remain supportive of President Donald Trump.

In a new column for Mediaite, Ziegler tore into the defenses conservatives give of the president. He argues, in contrast with many on the right wing, that Hillary Clinton’s presidency wouldn’t have been the end of the country; that the economy under Trump shows no more progress than it did under President Barack Obama; that the GOP tax law is not nearly as impressive as its supporters argue. He also admits that there have been conservative judges appointed and perhaps some deregulation — two major priorities for the Republican Party — but the benefits and extent of these results are unclear.

So he admitted that Trump has “provided some real wins” for the GOP, but said that they have come at “enormous cost.”

View the complete May 15 article by Cody Fenwick on the AlterNet website here.

Trump And Pence Launch Autocratic Attack On Federal Courts

Here’s a proposed step towards the new autocracy that Donald Trump is promoting that we ought to stop in its tracks.

Vice President Mike Pence told the Federalist Society on Wednesday that the Trump administration intends to challenge the right of federal district courts to issue rulings blocking nationwide policies, arguing that such injunctions are obstructing Trump’s agenda on immigration, health care and other issues.

It’s a perfect distillation of what’s wrong about the direction of the Trump presidency. It is a call for disruption – again – of judicial procedures and jurisdictions, all with the intent to protect any policy announcement by an imperial White House to be questioned. And it is not the White House’s jurisdiction to change.

View the complete May 12 article by Terry H. Schwadron of DCReport.org on the National Memo website here.