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Some graduating seniors at the University of Notre Dame say they are planning to protest the presence of Vice President Pence at their commencement by standing up and quietly walking out of the ceremony. School officials say they wont try to stop them.

Pence will give the commencement address at the nations most prominent Catholic university on May 21 at the campus in South Bend, Ind. In the past, the university invited newly inaugurated presidents to give the address in their first year of office and six previous presidents accepted but this year was different.

Thousands of students and faculty members signed a petition asking Notre Dames president, the Rev. John Jenkins, not to invite him, saying that they did not think Trumps actions and behavior were in line with the schools values. While there were Trump supporters who wanted him to speak, the school decided to instead invite Pence, a former Indiana governor.

A coalition of student activist groups at Notre Dame called We StaND For is planning the walkout to protest policies Pence pursued as governor that they say targeted the most vulnerable. Other groups from outside the school community will, at the same time, hold a protest just south of campus to show solidarity with the students, according to Bryan Ricketts of We StaND For. One of the participating groups, South Bend Equality, wrote in a statement about why it is participating:

Our members lived in South Bend when Mike Pence was governor. We know all too well how his policies endangered or caused direct harm to public education, health care, womens rights, the environment, LGBTQ individuals, immigrants and refugees, reproductive rights, local infrastructure, the economy of our state, and more.

Other groups participating in the off-campus protest are We Stand For; We Go High! of St. Joe County, Ind.; Michiana Alliance for Democracy; Alliance for Democracy; the Nu Black Power Movement; Inclusive Michiana; Planned Parenthood of Indiana & Kentucky; and the IWW Local 26.

Paul Browne, vice president for public affairs and communications at the University of Notre Dame, said that student protest leaders have already talked to security police and other officials on campus about their plans, and the school isnt trying to stop them. He said the protesters plan to silently leave commencement at some point and do it in a respectful manner.

The action, he said, does not surprise school officials because the university has repeatedly been the scene of protests.

For example, some antiabortion activists protested President Barack Obama when he spoke at the 2009 graduation ceremony, and there were protests too for Vice President Joe Biden at the 2016 commencement, he said. Biden was there to receive the Laetare Medal, along with former Republican house speaker John Boehner; the award is the highest given to Catholics in the United States and recognizes service to the Catholic Church and society. There were protesters on campus, too, for a recent talk by conservative political scientist Charles Murray.

Its not unusual for us, he said.

Pence protest organizers are using the hashtag #WalkOutND to build support for their effort and say they expect scores of students and many more family and friends in the audience to participate. There will be about 2,000 graduating seniors at the ceremony.

Browne said the school was not concerned about the protests. Virtually our entire discussion at the moment is about the weather, he said. Thunderstorms may drive the ceremony from an outside venue, where students can have unlimited tickets for guests, to an inside auditorium where tickets will be limited, he said. (Correction: An earlier version said the six previous presidents had spoken at Notre Dame; it was six former presidents. Also clarifying wording on past protesters.)

Original post:
Notre Dame students plan to protest against Mike Pence at ... - Washington Post

A historian who has accurately predicted every presidential election since 1984 including Donald Trump believes the 45th president will not be able to finish his four-year term.

Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University, told CBC that Trumps decision to fire FBI director James Comey could be considered grounds for impeachment although hes not sure Vice President Mike Pence would take Trumps place.

The media has given Mike Pence a huge pass, Licthman said. He lied about Gen. (Mike) Flynn, he lied about the reasons why Comey was fired, and the media says he was misled. We dont know that he was misled, thats a supposition on the part of the media. In fact, maybe he was part of this whole operation right from the start, and maybe hes in it as deeply as Donald Trump we do not know, and an impeachment investigation needs to look at Mr. Pence, as well.

He noted that Comey was fired one day after former acting attorney general Sally Yates testified before Congress, and the president admitted the FBI directors dismissal was related to the Russia investigation.

Thats at least borderline obstruction of justice, Lichtman said. Add to that the fact that the White House pretty transparently conspired earlier with Rep. (Devin) Nunes to derail the House investigation into possible Russian collusion. Putting it all together, and youve got a probable cause case for obstruction of justice and theres only one way of dealing with that, constitutionally.

Lichtman said the Constitutions framers established impeachment to peacefully protect democratic institutions from a rogue president.

If Democrats stand firm, it would only take some two dozen Republicans to shift thats just 10 percent of Republicans in the House, he said.

He cautioned Democrats against pushing for a special prosecutor, because the president could hire and fire that investigator, and instead pursue an impeachment investigation in the House Judiciary Committee.

It would be conducted by another branch of government, it would be entirely independent of Donald Trump and it would have the clout to keep Donald Trump from obstructing it, Lichtman said.

Read this article:
Historian who accurately called every election since 1984 blasts the media for giving Mike Pence's lies a pass - Raw Story

NewsBusters (blog)

HuffPost Writes a 'Particularly Gross Hit on Mike Pence' on Persecution of Christians NewsBusters (blog) Becket Adams at The Washington Examiner is calling out The Huffington Post for a particularly gross hit on Mike Pence. The vice president spoke on Thursday to the first-ever World Summit in Defense of Persecuted Christians, an event that the liberal ... About that Mike Pence speech: Are solid facts available on global ...GetReligion (blog) FACT CHECK: Mike Pence Called Christianity the Most Persecuted Religion. That's Very, Very TrueIndependent Journal Review See the Persecuted: Religious Minorities in Iraq and SyriaNational Review World Religion News -HuffPost all 14 news articles »

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HuffPost Writes a 'Particularly Gross Hit on Mike Pence' on Persecution of Christians - NewsBusters (blog)

When history holds its trial to account for the Donald Trump presidency, Trump himself will be acquitted on grounds of madness. History will look at his behavior, his erratic and childish lying and his flamboyant ignorance of history itself and pronounce the man, like George III, a cuckoo for whom restraint, but not punishment, was necessary. Such will not be the case for Mike Pence, the toady vice president and the personification of much that has gone wrong in Washington.

On any given day, Pence will do his customary spot-on imitation of a bobblehead. Standing near Trump in the Oval Office, he will nod his head robotically as the president says one asinine thing after another and then, maybe along with others, he will be honored with a lie or a version of the truth so mangled by contradictions and fabrications that a day in the White House is like a week on LSD.

I pick on Pence because he is the most prominent and highest-ranked of President Trumps lackeys. Like with all of them, Pences touching naivete and trust are routinely abused. He vouches for things that are not true no talk of sanctions between Mike Flynn and the Russians, for instance, or more recently the reason James B. Comey was fired as FBI director. In both instances, the president either lied to him or failed to tell him the truth. The result was the same: The vice president appeared clueless.

I dont feel an iota of sympathy for Pence. He was among a perfidious group of political opportunists who pushed Trumps candidacy while having to know that he was intellectually, temperamentally and morally unfit for the presidency. They stuck with him as he mocked the disabled, belittled women, insulted Hispanics, libeled Mexicans and promiscuously promised the impossible and ridiculous all that Day One nonsense like how the wall would be built and Mexico would pay for it.

I also have little sympathy for Sean Spicer, who plays the role of a bullied child. Trump routinely sends him out to lie to the American people, which he has done ever since his insistence that the inaugural crowd was bigger than the photos showed. He persists at his job even though Trump broadly hints that he will soon fire him. When Spicer is gone, he will be easily replaced. Washington is full of people who have no honor and no pride, either.

I think of Steven Mnuchin, the treasury secretary, and Wilbur Ross, at Commerce. What possessed them to back Trump for the GOP nomination? Didnt they know the sort of man he is? Did they think a lower tax rate and fewer regulations are worth risking American democracy and our standing in the world? When they watched the bizarre way Trump sacked Comey, were they proud of their candidate?

The swamp that Trump kept mentioning in the campaign is not really one of tangled bureaucratic mangroves, but of moral indifference. Washington always had a touch of that after all, its business is politics but Trump and his people have collapsed the space between lies and truth. The president uses one and then the other whatever works at the time.

The president cannot be trusted. He cannot be believed. He has denigrated the news media, not for its manifest imperfections but for its routine and obligatory search for the truth. He has turned on the judiciary for its fidelity to the law and, once, for the ethnic heritage of a judge. Trump corrupts just about everything he touches.

From most of the Republican Party comes not a whisper of rebuke. The congressional leadership is inert, cowed, scurrying to the White House for this or that ceremonial picture, like members of the erstwhile Politburo flanking Stalin atop Lenins mausoleum. They are appalled, but mute. They want to make the best of a bad situation, I know, and they fear the voters back home, but their complicity ought to be obvious even to them.

America is already worse off for Trumps presidency. He was elected to make America great again, but his future is more like other nations sordid past. His own party has been sullenly complicit, showing how little esteem many politicians place in our most cherished values, not the least of them honesty and dignity. For all of them, an accounting is coming. When they are asked by history what they did during the Trump years, the worst of them will confess that they bobbled their heads like dumb dolls, while the best will merely say they kept their heads down.

Read more from Richard Cohens archive.

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Trump doesn't embody what's wrong with Washington. Pence does. - Washington Post

Youve got to be wondering whats going through Mike Pences head these days.

BT thats Before Trump Pence had a reputation as a decent, honest guy, at least as far as politicians go. Maybe you didnt like his positions on abortion or LGBT issues, but you knew at his core he meant it when he said he was a Christian first.

BT, Pence was a marginally competent politician, but most people didnt question his integrity. (Well, there was that time he used his campaign money to pay his personal expenses in violation of election law, but he later repented.)

After a nearly year in Trumps megalomaniacal circle, his integrity is peeling away bit by bit like the faux gold on a $10 wedding band.

Remember that it was Pence who assured Christian voters that Trump wasnt such a bad guy after the Access Hollywood tapes last summer. The world heard what Trump really thought about women in the lewdest possible terms in a conversation with then-host Billy Bush.

OK, Pence did say he was offended by the remarks, but then he added, I am grateful that he has expressed remorse and apologized to the American people. We pray for his family and look forward to the opportunity he has to show what is in his heart when he goes before the nation tomorrow night.

Trumps apology consisted of saying it was locker-room talk and that he was sorry if anyone was offended.

Earlier this year, Pence passed on inaccurate information that Michael Flynn, Trumps first national security advisor, had no contact with the Russians before the election. Soon after that confident assurance of Flynns integrity, the former general was forced to resign because of surprise contact with Russians before the election.

All right, Pence didnt lie. He was lied to. Maybe we shouldnt question his integrity over that incident.

But that was before last week when Trump abruptly fired FBI Director James Comey. I know what youre going to say. Nobody liked him anyhow so whats the big deal. Democrats hate him for sinking Hillary Clintons campaign and Republicans hate him for not charging her over keeping emails on a private server. So everybody should be happy, right?

Not exactly, but whether youre happy with the firing or think its part of a bigger conspiracy, theres no question that Indianas former boy scout governor got stuck in the middle.

The original story was that Comey got canned on a recommendation from the Justice Department over his handling of the Clinton email investigation last year. Maybe he did. I dont know. But that was the official White House line and Pence went out and delivered that message like the loyal soldier he is.

Heres what he said: Let me be very clear that the presidents decision to accept the recommendation of the deputy attorney general and the attorney general to remove Director Comey as the head of the FBI was based solely and exclusively on his commitment to the best interests of the American people and to ensuring that the FBI has the trust and confidence of the people this nation.

When questioned, Pence was adamant that the firing was not about the Russia investigation and said, The president made the right decision at the right time.

Then Trump sat down with NBC News anchor Lester Holt. In that rambling interview, Trump said that he was going to fire Comey regardless of what the Justice Department recommended.

And here is the rest of what Trump said: And in fact when I decided to just do it I said to myself, I said, You know, this Russia thing with Trump and Russia is a made-up story, its an excuse by the Democrats for having lost an election that they shouldve won.

So, it was about Russia after all and Pence, as he stood by his man, delivered another phony story.

How many times until the other persons lie youre telling becomes your own? Loyalty doesnt absolve anyone of the lies or wrongful acts. We all know plenty of examples from history to know the I was just following orders line doesnt wash.

So, Mr. Pence, what is the price of a soul? Is it power or at least the proximity to power?

In your case and with apologies to Lord Acton we are witnessing how proximity to power corrupts. Absolutely.

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What is the price of Mike Pence's soul? - NUVO