dagblog - Comments for "Pence Quietly Ascendant"

Pence meets with Koch brother

artappraiser — Sat, 24 Jun 2017 03:35:17 +0000

Pence meets with Koch brother in Colorado

By Reid Wilson @ TheHill.com- 06/23/17 10:56 PM EDT

[....] The meeting was not on the vice president's schedule released by the White House late Thursday.

A spokesman for the vice president's office denied to The Hill earlier Friday that Pence would be meeting with the Koch brothers' network. The spokesman did not respond to requests for comments late Friday.

James Davis, a spokesman for the Koch brothers' network, said Pence and Charles Koch discussed issues ranging from tax reform to a measure reforming the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, which President Trump signed Friday. The meeting lasted 50 minutes, Davis said.

Marc Short, the White House's director of legislative affairs who once served as Pence's chief of staff on Capitol Hill, and Marty Obst, a longtime Pence adviser who runs the vice president's political action committee, both sat in on the meeting.

On the Koch brothers' side of the room: Mark Holden, Koch Industries' general counsel; Tim Phillips, president of the Koch brothers-backed group Americans for Prosperity; Brian Hooks, president of the Charles Koch Foundation and the Charles Koch Institute; and Davis.

While President Trump had an almost non-existent relationship with the libertarian billionaire Koch brothers, Pence has a much longer history with both Charles and David Koch.

Americans for Prosperity touted Pence's record as governor of Indiana. His former pollster Kellyanne Conway, now a senior adviser in the Trump White House, worked for a Koch network group. And Short, the White House's top lobbyist and former Pence chief of staff, once ran the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, a key wing of the Koch brothers network [....]

Addams Family III casting

PeraclesPlease — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 06:06:00 +0000

In reply to his p.r. people trying out

Addams Family III casting call, coming up.

Here's Pence trying to play conservative dad. Forget participating in a man's world, girls especially you PC brown-colored types - boys got hormones & gotta act on them. You can look for "inclusion" in the serving line. Thus quoteth the palled bearer of bad tidings.

his p.r. people trying out

artappraiser — Mon, 19 Jun 2017 02:32:10 +0000

In reply to yez you guys are right, could

his p.r. people trying out the kinder, gentler mortician thing, see if that helps...

Ryan Lizza does think

artappraiser — Sun, 18 Jun 2017 05:16:35 +0000

In reply to It is beginning to strike me

Ryan Lizza does think Rosenstein got fooled by Trump:

[....] It is classic Trump: he ensnared Rosenstein in a scheme to get rid of Comey. Now that Rosenstein has tried to correct his error and insulate the investigation from further meddling, Trump is using Rosenstein’s role in the scheme to try to push him aside. (If this sounds like a plot from “The Sopranos,” it’s because there were, in fact, several episodes like this)

Rosenstein may have only himself to blame if he is sidelined from the investigation by recusal. Despite his mistakes, he is probably the best guarantor of a fair inquiry. (The next person in line, Rachel Lee Brand, the Associate Attorney General, has a background in Republican politics and little experience in criminal or national-security cases. [....]

yez you guys are right, could

artappraiser — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 01:45:30 +0000

In reply to The pall of sympathetic death

yez you guys are right. And could never evah win the presidency the regular way, or even irregular Trumpian way.

Comes to mind Pat Robertson did this shtick so much better: grinning, laughing insincere mortician!

It is beginning to strike me

artappraiser — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 01:21:26 +0000

In reply to Pence Quietly Ascendant

It is beginning to strike me that it must take considerable skill to stay out from under that chaotically weaving big orange bus

...President Trump put fresh pressure on the second-highest-ranking official at the Justice Department on Friday.... “I am being investigated for firing the FBI Director by the man who told me to fire the FBI Director! Witch Hunt,” the president said on Twitter. ...

The pall of sympathetic death

PeraclesPlease — Sat, 17 Jun 2017 00:57:00 +0000

In reply to I think the house bill was

The pall of cloying insincere sympathetic death. Yes, morticians, pallbearers, carriers of the dead.

I think the house bill was

CVille Dem — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 22:23:01 +0000

In reply to Pence may be a vice president

I think the house bill was exactly what Pence would want to happen. It wasn't so much the "roll-out" as it was an objective reading of the bill that killed it. Anyone with a working knowledge of health-care, and 'insurance speak' could see through the lipstick on that pig. Remember he was wildly unpopular as governor, and his Republican successor undid a lot of the draconian policies that Pence had championed. If by "astute politician" you mean that he can sincerely state absurd lies, looking like he is telling the truth, and even cares about the people he is screwing, then, yes. He is astute.

Unlike Ryan, who just the other day said that they had to get all this money out of health care so they could do tax "reform." I think I am the only living soul who caught it because --> no blowback. But Pence would never have said it in the first place.

This is subjective, but I think Pence missed his calling. He would be an excellent mortician. He looks the part; he would have no problem over-charging grieving families, and he would probably enjoy removing any jewelry the family wanted left on the deceased... And then melting it down for the wife.

Pence may be a vice president

ocean-kat — Fri, 16 Jun 2017 21:25:53 +0000

In reply to Pence Quietly Ascendant

His inconspicuousness is engineered to keep all eyes on the president. But it’s also necessary to guard against whispers that he, not Trump, is running the show—a narrative fueled both by Pence’s standing in the party and by the fact that he has been empowered like no vice president before him to establish, sell and execute the administration’s agenda.

Pence may be a vice president with extraordinary input in the decision making process but it doesn't seem to me he "runs" things or has any more power than any of the other major players in the WH. He's an astute politician and if he was in charge we wouldn't see the chaos and disorder we've seen so far. It's not just Trump's tweets, as damaging as they are, that damages the WH. Whether Pence agrees with the travel ban or not he was capable of planning a careful executive order. Even beyond that he was capable of planning a politically competent roll out of a poorly worded executive order. He had neither the influence or power to affect either the order or it's roll out.

The same could be said for the health care repeal. It wasn't just a policy disaster it was a political disaster. Health care is difficult in so many ways but both the policy and the politics of it's roll out could have been improved if Ryan and a politically astute WH representative like Pence had worked together on it. Given the disaster it seems clear to me that Pence wasn't deeply involved in either or other players in the WH had at least as much if not more of a role. The only other explanation I see is that I'm giving Pence too much credit as a politically astute player when he's actually incompetent but, you know, I doubt that.