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In Robert A. Caros The Passage of Power, the most recent volume of his majestic biography of President Lyndon Johnson, he recalls the mental machinations LBJ went through before accepting the vice president slot on the 1960 Democratic ticket led by John F. Kennedy.

LBJ didnt like the Kennedys, but weighed the merits of the number-two job in relation to his own stalled but ferocious presidential aspirations. He even instructed his staff to look up how many presidents had died during their term since 1860 five out of 18. Later, when asked why he took the offer, LBJ said, I looked it up: one out of every four presidents has died in office. Im a gamblin man, darlin, and this is the only chance I got.

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I imagine Mike Pence making similar calculations before becoming Donald Trumps running mate last summer. This is not to imply that Trump isnt the healthiest individual ever elected to the presidency, as his longtime physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein, declared with suspiciously Trumpian hyperbole last year. Instead, Pence was likely banking on the chaotic Trump campaign birthing a calamitous Trump presidency. With the administration buckling under daily accusations and investigations, Pence is acting like a man ready to move on up to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.

The New York Times recently reported that Pence is chatting with deep-pocketed money men like Charles Koch, and hosting dinners with his wife, Karen, for wealthy donors at the vice presidents mansion. In May, Pence launched his own PAC, the Great America Committee. While its name echoes Trumps campaign slogan, no previous sitting vice president has ever formed such a separate political organization. An unnamed Pence surrogate told NBC News that any chatter that the PAC is meant to bolster the veeps 2020 plans is misguided.

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Thats probably true. Pence likely envisions his White House scheme coming into focus long before 2020. Behind that frozen smile, he has to despise Trumps say-and-tweet-anything belligerence, multiple marriages, and situational Christianity. By comparison, Pence comes off as controlled, steely, and sane. He looks like a 1990s basic cable TV version of an American president.

Everybodys got to eat, right?

Pence behaves as if hes immune to all the drama swirling around his boss, or at least sufficiently out of the loop to seem reasonably clean. Yet like others in the Trump administration, he has also lawyered up, hiring his own attorney to represent him in the special counsel investigation and congressional inquiries into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Whether Pence will be ensnared in this administrations bottomless troubles remains, for now, smoke from a distant fire. This much is already certain: Pence would be an awful president. The man who describes himself as a Christian, a conservative, and a Republican, in that order, is a hard-line theocrat with more respect for the Bible than the Constitution. As a US congressman, then Indianas governor, he proposed policies that threatened the lives and rights of women and the LGBT community. Even in a reliably red state, Pences medieval beliefs, especially a so-called religious freedom law to legalize discrimination, were so denounced that the Indianapolis Star ran a front-page editorial under the massive headline FIX THIS NOW. The state legislature eventually watered down the anti-LGBT language enough to curtail the economic backlash.

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If Trump is ultimately removed from office, it cant happen soon enough for Pence, who always looks like hes humming Hail to the Chief to himself whenever he walks into a room. Should that happen, Trumps detractors would need to gird themselves for a new fight with a man whose best qualification for the job is that hes not Trump. While thats certainly true, saying Pence would be a better president than Trump is like claiming its better to be mauled by a black bear than a brown bear the disastrous impact on this already reeling nation would be exactly the same.

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Mike Pence looks like he's ready to pounce on the presidency - The Boston Globe

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Mike Pence voices support for radical health care alternative MSNBC If Senate Republicans fail to pass their regressive health care plan, there's quite a bit of support among GOP members to strike a bipartisan deal with Senate Democrats and move on to other issues. There is, however, a radically different approach that ... Mike Pence: 'We are close' on healthcareWashington Examiner VP Mike Pence: 'We're Very Close' on HealthcareNewsmax Pence endorses repeal and delay strategy on ObamaCareThe Hill all 1,617 news articles »

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Mike Pence voices support for radical health care alternative - MSNBC

Over the weekend, reports began to circulate that Vice PresidentMike Pence has been meeting with numerous wealthy donors. Pence and his wife have reportedly met withChicago hedge fund manager Kenneth C. Griffin, brokerage firm founder Charles Schwab, and other Republican fund-raisers from Dow Chemical and the military contractor United Technologies. This follows follows news from last month that Pence had formally established his own political action committee.

Does any of this definitively prove that Mike Pence is going to run for president come 2020? No, not necessarily but the fact that Pence appears to be preparing for even the remote possibility of a potential presidential run should terrify American women nonetheless. If you think what were getting from alleged sexual abuser Donald Trump attacks on Planned Parenthood, sexist remarks to female reporters and politicians, the works is annoying and dangerous, just take a moment to imagine what Pence has in store.

We all know the man is a raging sexist. His refusal to dine alone with women who arent his wife (because, you know, all women are inherently conniving temptresses) should have made that plenty clear.

But when men like Mike Pence are given political power to spew out horrifying anti-woman policies, thats when casual sexism crosses the line from irritating to dangerous.

Not even touching yet on Pences terrifying and draconian take on reproductive rights, theres his awful record on equal pay. In a 1997 op-ed entitled, Day-care kids, Pence blamed working mothers for stunting their childrens emotional development, and opted to shame and blame them rather that suggest real and compassionate solutions like paid family leave. Predictably enough, while in Congress, Pence voted not once but three times against legislation to promote equal pay.

To Pence, women belong at home and in the kitchen, and in addition to his opposition to equal pay, his record on abortion rights and Planned Parenthood also makes this abundantly clear. After all, what other options do women have without affordable access to birth control and abortion?

As Governor of Indiana, Pence led a crusade against abortion rights, widely reported on by Mother Jones last year, signing off on legislation that would require women to pay costly, out-of-pocket fees for the burial or cremation of aborted fetuses, as well as a law that would hold doctors liable for wrongful death if they performed an abortionecause of the race, gender, or disability of the fetus. The very pro-life Pence has also transferred funding meant for low-income families to Christian crisis pregnancy centers that operate solely to lie to and emotionally manipulate vulnerable pregnant women.

And to top it all off, by 2014, under Gov. Pence,state funding for Planned Parenthood in Indiana had been cut nearly in half from 2005 levels, unsurprisingly yielding HIV outbreaks and slashing low-income womens access to crucial health care services. The Pence-led war on Planned Parenthood was likely a response to the fact that some clinics, without federal funding, offer abortion services; ironically, by denying thousands of women access to birth control and sexual education, Pence very well could have contributed to higher abortion rates.

Pences reign of terror over Indian allows voters a glimpse of what he would do as president. And for American women, its less a glimpse than it is an utter nightmare.

This is an opinion piece. The views expressed in this article are those of just the author.

Excerpt from:
A Potential Mike Pence Presidential Run Should Terrify Women - Mediaite

Charlie Gard, who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, is being treated at Londons Great Ormond Street Hospital for Children. Charlies parents have raised 1.3 million ($1.7 million) to take their son to the U.S. for potentially life-saving treatment, but hospital administrators have fought Chris Gard and Connie Yates for months through several courts to have Charlies life support removed.

We hope and pray that little Charlie Gard gets every chance, said Mr. Pence on the radio programme, adding he prayedfor the family to be allowed to choose the greatest extent of life-saving treatment thats available to their child.

Otherwise, the vice president feared, the infant will be submitted to a government programme that says, no, were going to remove life support from your precious 11-month-old child.

Mr. Pences comments come following support received by U.S. President Donald Trump, who tweetedlast week: If we can help little#CharlieGard, as per our friends in the U.K. and the Pope, we would be delighted to do so.

Pope Francis also came out in support of Charlie being able to receive further treatment, withRomes Bambino Gesu hospital, a Vatican-run childrens hospital, offering to receive and treat Charlie an offer which was rejected by the British government for legal reasons.

On Monday afternoon, High Court Judge Mr. Justice Francis, who made the initial High Court ruling in April,said the case would be listed for a full day Thursday. The judge explained a final decision may not come until Friday, meaning more delays to Charlie receiving treatment.

Chief Executive of Americans United for Life, Catherine Glenn-Foster,who is close to the Gard family, said on Sunday: [Chris and Connie] are stressed as anyone would be in this situation, where their own parental rights are being stripped away by an institution that was hired to care for their son and instituted to care for the most vulnerable among us.

That very institution hired to care for Charlie is trying to strip him of his rights and his parents of their rights to even just take him to get a second opinion.

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VP Mike Pence: 'We Hope and Pray that Little Charlie Gard Gets Every Chance' - Breitbart News

Vice President Pence is spending considerable time cultivating big-money Republican donors at small, private events, including hedge fund managers and executives from brokerage houses, chemical giants and defensecontractors, Kenneth P. Vogel reports at the New York Times. Many of these events, whose participants are kept secret from the media and are omitted from Pences public schedule, have been taking placeat the vice-presidential residence at the Naval Observatory, as well as other nongovernment venues.

While cultivating support from deep-pocketed business interests is nothing new in GOP politics, Pences activities raise the question of whether he is doing this for Trump-Pence 2020 or for himself. As Vogels piecepoints out, Pences intimate confabswith wealthy donors and conservative power brokers have fueled speculation among Republican insiders that he is laying the foundation for his own political future, independent from Mr. Trump.

From the Michael Flynn scandal to James Comey's firing, Vice President Pence has repeatedly had his official statements defending the Trump administration contradicted - sometimes by the president himself. (Jenny Starrs/The Washington Post)

All of this suggests something important about President Trump. Despite Pences protestations to the contrary, the vice president looks to be preparing for his own political future.Beyond this clear signal about his ownpolitical ambitions, Pences actions raise the question of whether he has lost confidence in Trumps ability to come out of the Russia investigation unscathed.

This is not the first time that Pence, in his short tenure as Trumps vice president, has sparked chatter about his political ambitions unyoked from Trump. In May, Pence filed paperwork with the Federal Election Commission, forming his own political action committee, the Great America Committee, marking the first time a sitting vice president has formed such a separate political arm, NBC Newsreported at the time.

The Great America Committee is apparently not wasting any time. Vogel reports that last Thursday, itheld a reception for prospective donors at the Washington offices of the powerful lobbying firm BGR.

In holding donor events, Great America Committee will do nothing to quell speculation about Pences intentions. When he first launched the PAC in May, Pence aides attempted to play down the move by saying itsresources will be used to support Republican congressional candidates in the 2018 midterms. But that characterization didnt diminishhow unusual this was: Traditionally, vice presidents tap the resources of their party to support congressional candidates, rather than create their own fundraising organization.

Its highly unusual, if not unprecedented, for a first-term vice president to appear to separate hiselection activities, even if aimed at congressional races, from the president he serves. But the timing of Pences formation of the Great America Committee suggests the move may have something to do with judgments about Trumps future, too.

Pence filed the paperwork on May 17, eight days after Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, and the same day that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein appointed Robert S. Mueller III to be special counsel in the Russia investigation. Indeed, the two weeks before Pence filed the Great America papers were rife with some of the most explosive news stories about the Russia scandal to date.

To review: On May 8, former acting attorney general Sally Yates testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee that the White House kept former national security adviser Michael Flynn for 18 days after she told the White House counsel that he was vulnerable to Russian blackmail. (Pence has always sought to distance himself from the Flynn affair: After Trump asked for Flynns resignation in February, Pencemaintainedthat Flynn misled him about the conversations he had with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, playing the part of the duped, but loyal, soldier.)

Then, after that Yates testimony on May 8, Trump engaged in probably the most self-destructive sequence of actions of his presidency. On May 9, he fired Comey. The next day, he met with Kislyak and Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov in the Oval Office, telling them that firing the real nut job Comey had eased great pressure on him from the Russia investigation. And the day after that, Trump admitted on national television that he had fired Comey because of the Russia thing. Finally, on May 12, Trump posted his tweethinting that he may have recorded his conversations with Comey. (He hadnt.)

One week later, Pence filed the Great America Committee papers, marking his break with the traditional arrangement for political fundraising between presidents and vice presidents.

The traditional arrangement is based on the expectation that the president and vice president will together run for reelection. But Pences activities seem to signal doubts about whether there will even be a Trump-Pence ticket to run in2020. We are not yet six months into Trumps term, and each new revelation in the burgeoning Russia investigation seems to heighten the possibility that Trump could either no longer be president, or at least no longer be a viable reelection candidate, in 2020.

Pence is perhapspreparing for just that potentiality. If he were confident that the Russia investigation is fake news or a hoax, as Trump has maintained, he would be hewing to the traditional vice-presidential path. Instead, hes making his own plans which may show just how worried he is that the Russia investigation is going to come crashing down on his president.

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Is Mike Pence betting it will all come crashing down on Trump? - Washington Post (blog)