The Man Who Didn't Get Hanged

 

Former vice president Mike Pence is making abortion a central plank in his presidential bid. “The cause of life is the calling of our lifetime,” he said Friday at the Faith and Freedom Coalition’s “Road to Majority” conference in Washington. Pence said he favored a national law that would ban abortion after 15 weeks into a pregnancy as a “minimum national standard.” He also said that Republicans should not relent until every state has restricted the right to abortion and that national law is in place.

--Dan Balz 

So instead of the MAGA noose, he's gonna hang himself on this issue. Can't say I wish him "Good Luck with that!" But in its other sense, "Good luck with that!" 

A Stuffed Shirt Visits UNC-Chapel Hill

 

Photo Ira Wilder, Daily Tar Heel

Mike Pence spoke at the UNC-Chapel Hill student union yesterday on the topic "Saving America From the Woke Left." He was certainly comfortably asleep during the four years he served as Trump's lickspittle, so that topic was very much on-brand.

Pence, who is notoriously wary of being one-on-one in a room with any woman, favors a national abortion ban -- an exceedingly popular position on college campuses like UNC -- and he owned it in Chapel Hill: “I couldn’t be more proud to have been a small part of the administration that appointed three of the justices that sent Roe vs. Wade to the ash heap of history where it belongs and give America a new beginning,” he said.

A new beginning? Like, beginning again in 1950?

A counter-protest to Pence's speech formed outside the student union.

Ira Wilder, Daily Tar Heel

The Essence of Mike Pence

 

Vice President Pence: Out of the Loop, But in the Soup

The piety of a willing tool

The blindness that comes from piety!

Even as evidence mounts that Vice President Pence has been fully involved in Twitterman's pressure campaign on Ukraine to squeeze out some juicy dirt on Joe Biden, Mike Pence has begun channeling Sergeant Schultz. "I never knew..., I never read..., I never heard.... In short, I know nothing!" It's now become his badge of Christian honor to declare that he was out of the loop (a place where a lot of other officials in the Trump administration wish they resided).

Trump had been planning to send Pence to Ukrainian President Zelensky's inauguration in May, then abruptly instructed him not to go, denying the new president the symbolic blessing of the highest echelons of the Trump administration. The pressure campaign was underway.

On July 25th, Trump delivered his "I need a favor" demand to Zelensky when the latter mentioned his desire for anti-tank missles. Trump withheld the military aid, waiting for the favor, then sent Pence to meet Zelensky on September 1 in Warsaw to pound in that spike a little deeper. With great rueful piety (we feel sure), Pence informed Zelensky that hundreds of millions of dollars in U.S. aid to Ukraine was not going to be released "amid concerns about the country’s lagging efforts to combat corruption" (Greg Miller, Greg Jaffe, and Ashley Parker).

Do you think Zelensky didn't know what "corruption" referred to in that context, especially given Trump's spelling it out in the July 25th phone call?

Do you think Pence didn't understand the message he was delivering?

Pence wants you to think he's a pious idiot, in which event you should also think him totally unworthy to hold any public office, let alone the office of Vice President in charge of delivering Trump messages.

Why Trump Is Going to Southwestern Pa Today

Take a good look at that map above, a rank example of partisan gerrymandering, the 18th US House District of Pennsylvania, which will be ground zero for electoral politics from now right on through March 13th, when a special election will decide who replaces Republican Rep. Tim Murphy in Congress. Murphy, as I'm sure you remember, resigned after it became known that he had urged his mistress to have an abortion.

The 18th District was gerrymandered in 2013 for a Republican, and up until now it's delivered. The map-drawers deliberately skirted around Pittsburgh, but they managed to include some very affluent suburbs south of Pittsburgh. Hmmm, suburbs.

Congressional Republicans are so worried about the district that they've got Trump going there today to campaign for the Republican, Rick Saccone. And Mike Pence will follow along on Ground Hog Day to campaign for Saccone. Will Pence see his shadow, or will he squeeze his eyes tightly shut in silent prayer? Everyone already knows it's going to be many more weeks of winter for the Party of Trump.

I wrote about the Democratic candidate, Conor Lamb, weeks ago. He's another of those rising stars, a candidate who "fits his district," an assistant US attorney, and an ex-Marine. (Have you noticed how many retired military are now running for office as Democrats?) Lamb has said that he would not support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker of the House, a position that used to be the kiss of death for party support and a position I happen to agree with. If anything is clear about the BlueWave of 2018, the Democratic party is in need of new, younger leadership.

What's funny is that "a group of well-financed outside Republican groups is planning to unleash a biting advertising campaign against Conor Lamb," claiming he'll be the stooge of Nancy Pelosi. Hahahaha! "We will explain why he is a Nancy Pelosi rubber stamp,” vowed Corry Bliss, who runs the Congressional Leadership Fund. Gosh. With political opponents as dense as that... (you finish the sentence.)

Rick Saccone
Photo Marc Levy, AP

Meanwhile, Republican candidate Rick Saccone looks like day-before-yesterday's politics. Even among Republicans, he's considered "lackluster." Which is why Washington politicians are rushing to prop him up and why Trump will be in the district today and Mike Pence on Ground Hog Day. Saccone is playing his part. He's bragged that "I was Trump before Trump was Trump," whatever the hell that means, but we assume it means he's a fool and an idiot. He was, after all, a public supporter of dearly departed Roy Moore in Alabama.

Saccone was picked in a nominating convention and on the second ballot, apparently because the Republicans in the room were drinking undiluted gall that day and Saccone was the most conservative candidate running. He's a state representative from Allegheny County.

Yes, We're Tired of So Much Winning!

Vice President Mike Pence broke a 50-50 tie in the US Senate last night to deny bank and credit card customers the ability to band together in class action lawsuits against Wall Street banks and credit card companies that rip them off.

They say that Trump will sign the bill immediately, probably with a brass band and marching elephants to celebrate getting to sign something, anything, despite how badly it hurts the consuming public. He won't know what's actually in the bill and how it hurts regular, non-billionaire type people, but then, he also won't care.

So who were the two Republicans who forced the tie-breaker? Surprise! Not Bob Corker and not Jeff Flake and not Susan Collins and not John McCain and not Lisa Murkowski. They all voted for it. The two defecting Republicans were Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John Kennedy of Louisiana.

Pence Plays Stooge in Trump Reality TV

Yesterday, VP Pence asked himself, "Can I be a bigger tool?"

And the answer came here: "Yes. Yes, I can."

"Shadow Candidates": Republican Long Knives

Mike Pence is running for president. So is John Kasich. U.N. Ambassador Niki Haley has hired a pollster. Senators Tom Cotton (who's a polite young man) and Ben Sasse (who's openly defiant of Trump) have both been to Iowa Republican Party events. William Kristol, editor at large of The Weekly Standard, said he had begun informal conversations about creating a “Committee Not to Renominate the President”

(Hattip: Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, for their reporting based on "interviews with more than 75 Republicans at every level of the party, elected officials, donors and strategists.")

“They see weakness in this president,” said Senator John McCain, Republican of Arizona. “Look, it’s not a nice business we’re in.”

Pence is Trump's vice president and shouldn't be visibly running just six months into a first term. So he's not visibly running, but make no mistake: He's doing political calisthenics to be in shape should Trump not be able to continue. He's "party-building,"ostensibly, but also raising money for himself and displaying a grounded, adult, and credible alternative to Trump.

Meanwhile, John Kasich

... has been more defiant: The Ohio governor, who ran unsuccessfully in 2016, has declined to rule out a 2020 campaign in multiple television interviews, and has indicated to associates that he may run again, even if Mr. Trump seeks another term.

Mr. Kasich, who was a sharp critic of the Republicans’ failed attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act with deep Medicaid cuts, intends to step up his advocacy by convening a series of policy forums, in Ohio and around the country.

"It may get worse," said Jay Bergman, leading Republican donor. "Grievous setbacks" in the midterm elections of 2018 "could bolster challengers" in the party.

"The Shadow Candidates," Martin and Burns dubbed 'em. Long may they thole, and toughly!

Mob Action

Last night at his triumphalist rally in West Virginia, Trump opened up a new counter-strike against the Mueller investigation;

"They [Democrats] can't beat us at the voting booths so they are trying to cheat you out of the ... future that you want. They are trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want with a fake story that is demeaning to all of us and most importantly demeaning to our country and demeaning to our Constitution."

We well know that some 60 percent of West Virginia is part of the 36 percent of the American voters who still support Trump, so that rallying cry -- "they're trying to cheat you out of the leadership you want" -- is calculated to get the cheers that Trump craves in a state where the majority still support him. He needs constant flattery to feel validated, and he doesn't travel anywhere that validation isn't guaranteed.

But that line also suggests that he's perfectly willing to stir up the mob to defend him. How far is he willing to go? God only knows, but we'll find out.

Because the Mueller noose is tightening. He's empaneled his own grand jury in the District of Columbia, and he's apparently deep into Trump's tangled finances. Furthermore, the Republicans in the Senate at least -- who all have to run state-wide and not in gerrymandered safe havens -- are clearly done with his shenanigans. They are not adjourning the Senate during August so that Trump can't do any "recess appointments." Ouch. That's a direct slap at the leader of their party.

Thom Tillis

Two different bipartisan pairs of senators have drafted two separate pieces of legislation to prevent Trump from premptorily firing Robert Mueller. One of those bipartisan pairs includes an unlikely senator -- Thom Tillis of North Carolina, who hasn't heretofore shown much of a pulse. Both versions of a Stop Trump From Firing Mueller Act of 2017 would end the executive branch’s ability to fire a special counsel, by putting the question to a three-judge panel from the federal courts. Ouch again. That Tillis is willing to raise his hand in this manner against Trump suggests that he no longer fears retaliation.

Trump's mob actions notwithstanding, it appears that Republican senators intend to see the Mueller investigation through to its end, whatever that may entail. I think they'd probably prefer to have Mike Pence in the Oval Office. Maybe all of us would. Or maybe it isn't even a matter of preference but a matter of the life or death of our republic.

Well ... McCain!

Perhaps mortality focused his energies and his resolve, and he came through like he said he would. Perhaps he didn't want a legacy of killing health care for millions as he approaches his own battle with an aggressive brain cancer.

“I’ve stated time and time again that one of the major failures of Obamacare was that it was rammed through Congress by Democrats on a strict party-line basis without a single Republican vote,” he said in a statement explaining his vote. “We should not make the mistakes of the past.”

Two votes were called just after midnight. The first was a Democratic motion to refer the "skinny repeal" back to committee. It failed. The second vote was to pass the "skinny repeal." If you were watching, you know that the second vote prompted a full-court press by Republican brass on Senator John McCain.

McCain was seated next to Sen. Lindsay Graham who had derided the "skinny repeal" earlier in the day as a fraud but who had decided to vote for it anyway because he thought he had a promise from House Speaker Paul Ryan that it would never become law. Hell of a way to govern: "I'm voting for this law because I know it'll never become law."

Lisa Murkowski, one of the three no votes, approached McCain who smiled up at her and gave her a thumbs-down. Susan Collins joined the conversation. All three no votes were now talking.

From the well of the chamber, Majority Leader McConnell dispatched the other Arizona senator Jeff Flake to lobby McCain. McCain wouldn't look at him and continued talking to Murkowski and Collins.

According to reporter Ed O'Keefe, "That left Flake, one of the most polite members of the Senate, leaning into the conversation uncomfortably with a pained look on his face, as if he had to tell his father that he had run over the family dog with his car."

Seeing that Flake was getting nowhere, Vice President Mike Pence joined the conversation, and for 21 minutes he cajoled McCain, Murkowski, and Collins until he was pulled away for a phone call from the White House.

At 1:10 a.m. McCain crossed the Senate chamber and talked to Chuck Schumer and other Democrats. Sen. Dianne Feinstein gave him a big hug. As the vote on passage began, McCain was again off the floor talking to V.P. Pence, but he returned at 1:29 a.m. and delivered his no vote to the clerk.

There were audible gasps in the chamber.

Wonder how his best friend Lindsay Graham feels this morning, having witnessed an actual act of courage last night.

Senate Health Insurance Bill BAD for Both Republican and Democratic States

Gov. Brian Sandoval, Nevada

Even Republican Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin thinks the Senate repeal/replace bill is wrong-headed. Walker's negative reaction, from an arch conservative's perspective, might have some influence on Wisconsin's arch conservative Republican Senator Ron Johnson, who so far says he's undecided on how he'll vote.

Republican Gov. Phil Scott of Vermont, who won election last November even as Hillary Clinton carried his state by more than 20 percentage points, said the bill could cripple the health care system in Vermont. “We’ve expanded Medicaid, and even a small tweak could have a devastating impact on us as a state,” Mr. Scott said. “We’ve made great strides at protecting the most vulnerable and I believe, in its present form, this would not be good for Vermont.”

Republican Gov. Matt Bevin of Kentucky attacked the new Senate bill from the right. He's mad because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell didn't eliminate two taxes on high earners. He huffed and puffed and claimed that there had been an “understanding that those two taxes were going to be gone.” Bevin is following the lead of Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, who's already announced that he'll vote no. Plus Bevin has no love for Mitch McConnell, against whom he ran as a Tea Party insurgent in the 2014 Republican primary.

VP Mike Pence showed up at the National Governor's Conference and hilariously extolled the McConnell bill as "a rescue mission," even as he "also acknowledged that the proposal would significantly change the population that receives health care coverage through [Medicaid]." Hypocrisy watch! Pence, while he was recently governor of Indiana, accepted an expansion of Medicaid under Obamacare.

The governor who possibly holds all the power in the ultimate defeat of the new Senate bill, Republican Brian Sandoval of Nevada, remains steadfastly opposed, despite heavy lobbying from Trump himself, who apparently called Sandoval to pressure him to get his Republican Senator Dean Heller off the fence to support the bill. Sandoval and Heller stood together in opposing the first version of the bill.

Perhaps phone calls from Trump aren't having the desired effect any more (if they ever did), because the president obviously doesn't even understand what's in the bill, what its effect will be, or what he promised earlier that the Senate's repeal/replace law will directly contradict. Who cares what Trump wants? He's an idiot on policy.

16 Ways of Looking at a Mugwump

Mugwump, noun: 1. a Republican who refused to support the party nominee, James G. Blaine, in the presidential campaign of 1884. 2. a person who is unable to make up his or her mind on an issue, especially in politics; a person who is neutral on a controversial issue.
 

Kushner

1. Jared Kushner, Donald Trump's son-in-law, has conducted a "purge" of certain members of Trump's transition team, starting with Gov. Chris Christie who was fired as head of the transition last Friday. Former Representative Mike Rogers of Michigan and Matthew Freedman, a lobbyist who consults with corporations and foreign governments, were also fired. Both had ties to Christie.

2. The President-elect sent a tweet very late last night insisting that everything was going smoothly. “Very organized process taking place as I decide on Cabinet and many other positions. I am the only one who knows who the finalists are!”

3. Rebekah Mercer, a major donor to Trump’s presidential campaign and member of his executive transition team, told Republican operatives that she was having difficulty finding people interested in rank-and-file administration posts.

4. Trump took his first conversations with foreign leaders without reviewing official State Department briefing materials, and he broke from diplomatic practice by delaying conversations with close U.S. allies. Trump’s first call was with Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, followed by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu. British Prime Minister Theresa May didn’t get through to Trump until almost a day later.

5. As of yesterday, officials at both the Pentagon and State Department said they have heard nothing from Trump’s transition team.

Bannon

6. Trump’s newly-named chief strategist, Steve Bannon, helped turn Breitbart News into a platform for the white nationalist alt-right. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a possible choice for attorney general, was once turned down for a federal judgeship after several U.S. attorneys testified that he made racist comments in court. Former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani’s extensive business ties to Qatar and Venezuela complicate reports that he could be chosen as secretary of state.

7. Eliot A. Cohen, a former State Department official who had criticized Trump during the campaign but said after his election that he would keep an open mind about advising him, said yesterday on Twitter that he had changed his opinion. After speaking to the transition team, he wrote, "stay away!” adding, “They’re angry, arrogant, screaming ‘you LOST!’ Will be ugly.”

8. Donald Trump and some of his family went to dinner last night at the super-expensive 21 Club in Manhattan (where you can get a ribeye for $68) and said to the well-heeled diners, "We'll get your taxes down -- don't worry about it."

9. Vice President-elect Mike Pence -- who now heads the transition after the firing of Christie -- did his own purge, reportedly dismissing the several registered lobbyists who had moved in, leaving the transition "short-staffed" but closer to Trump’s campaign promise to “drain the swamp.”

Mnuchin

10. Former Goldman Sachs partner and Trump loyalist Steven Mnuchin is the frontrunner for treasury secretary. Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions is now favored to serve as attorney general. Seen arriving at Trump Tower yesterday was one-time campaign rival Ted Cruz. Joining the national security transition team is Frank Gaffney Jr. -- labeled by the Southern Poverty Law Center as “one of America’s most notorious Islamophobes,” and who last year defended Trump’s proposed Muslim ban as “common sense.”

11. Rudy Giuliani let his freak flag fly and admitted in public that he's pretty sure he'll be picked as Secretary of State. John Bolton’s name also surfaced for that job. Republican Sen. Rand Paul immediately objected, calling Bolton “unfit” for the job. “You want to have a diplomat in charge of diplomacy. You don’t want a bomb thrower,” Paul told CNN. Then Paul lumped the former mayor of New York City in with Bolton: “I think Giuliani and Bolton are very similar. Bolton just has a more extensive cheerleading background with regard to war in the Middle East.”

12. Republicans will have a one-seat majority in the Senate, meaning any defection -- by a senator like Rand Paul -- could pose a serious roadblock to confirming Trump’s top Cabinet picks. 

13. One source with knowledge of the Trump transition described it as a "knife fight."

14. A particular challenge for the Trump transition is lack of clarity about the division of power among Reince Priebus, named Chief of Staff of the Trump White House; Steve Bannon, the Harvard-educated white supremacist and campaign Svengali; and Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, who has Trump's ear like no one else. Another source tied to the transition described the resulting confusion as "buffoonery."

Flynn

15. Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn has emerged as a leading candidate for national security adviser. Flynn was a vocal and sometimes inflamatory advocate for Trump during the campaign. At the Republican National Convention he delivered a fiery speech attacking Clinton (as being in the enemy camp, along with Barack Hussein Obama) and waving the bloody flag of "American exceptionalism." He echoed Trump's rhetoric of crushing terrorism, cozying up to Russia, and dissing NATO.

16. Trump on the campaign trail promised repeatedly not to change Medicare. Now his official website says: “modernize Medicare, so that it will be ready for the challenges with the coming retirement of the Baby Boom generation – and beyond.” "Modernize"? House Speaker Paul Ryan has a different term: "Medicare is going to have price controls.”

A nation and its Constitution are one. A nation and its Constitution and Donald Trump are one. (Apologies, Wallace Stevens!)

Denial Is the Best Defense?

Liveblogging the Vice Presidential Debate

Got my popcorn right here!

Question of the hour: Can Mike Pence change the dynamic of the race? Does the White Rabbit calm the Red Queen?

Elaine Quijano, moderator.

9:05 1st question: Presidential leadership. If the VP has to step in, should tragedy occur, are you equipped to do the job?

Kaine starts off about protesting school segregation in a Virginia high school. Strange. Pivot to Hillary. He's ignoring the question, really. Kaine gets it in immediately that he's been a missionary. Ha. "Hillary's right-hand person," that's me! Son in the Marine Corps. Thought of Donald Trump in the presidency scares me to death. Wow. Kaine unpacked his portmanteau on that one!

Pence: America is on its death-bed. "I'm a small-town boy," so maybe America will survive? I'll bring a lifetime of experience to the job.

Quijano: Is Hillary trustworthy? Emails ... Clinton Foundation.

Kaine: Hillary bio boilerplate. "Donald Trump always puts himself first," in contrast to Hillary. Trump and his birtherism. (Kaine is on the attack!)

Quijano: 70% of voters think Trump has a bad temperament.

Pence: Goes on attack: the Hillary campaign has been nastier than our campaign.

Kaine: Interrupts, attacks about Trump's love of Vladimir Putin.

Pence: Continues doggedly, trying to pin nastiness on the Clinton-Kaine campaign.

Kaine is interrupting maybe too much. He clearly intends to dominate Pence. The right strategy?

Pence: reciting talking points about Obama giving Iraq to ISIS.

9:16 Quijano: Let's turn to the economy. Both your plans will add to the national debt. Won't that be disastrous?

Pence: Under Obama, we've more than doubled the national debt. And Kaine left his state in the hole. Which makes him a fitting running mate for Hillary Clinton, Pence quips. They're advocating a trillion $$ in tax increases. Gets in Bill Clinton's calling Obamacare a "crazy plan." Pence has been stuffed with talking points like a Christmas goose. Same with Kaine.

Kaine: Do you want a "you're hired!" president in Hillary, or a "you're fired!" president in Donald Trump? (They both came tonight well equipped with the one-liners!) Donald Trump said wages are too high, and both Trump and Pence are against increasing minimum wage. Trump's tax plan helps Donald Trump. It's a "Trump first" plan.

Quijano: Brings up Trump's failure to pay taxes. To Pence: Does that seem fair to you?

Pence: Changes the topic quickly. "What you're hearing from Kaine is more taxes, more spending."

Kaine: I am interested in hearing whether he approves of his running mate paying no taxes.

Quijano repeats the question to Pence: Pence repeats the official dodge: "Donald Trump is a businessman." And then the pivot to what a genius Trump is: "He used the tax code, and he used it brilliantly."

Kaine: In other words, in Trump World, it's smart not to pay for the military, it's smart not to pay for roads, it's smart not to pay for schools.

Quijano having trouble keeping them from talking over each other. It is irritating, and Kaine is the main transgressor.

Kaine: We will never, ever engage in a risky scheme to privatize Social Security. Congressman Pence has pushed for privatizing Social Security.

Pence: "There they go again." Channeling Saint Ronny.

Kaine: You have a voting record! (Not tonight, he doesn't!)

9:28: Law enforcement and race relations. Do we ask too much of police officers?

Kaine: Brings up his service as mayor of Richmond, in understanding the tough job of cops. Community policing! Build bonds of cooperation between police and community. Trump wants more stop-and-frisk, which polarizes the community and the police. "I'm a gun owner," Kaine announces.

Pence: My uncle is a cop. "At the risk of agreeing with you," he says to Kaine, "I think community policing is a great idea." I believe he just agreed with Kaine. But then pivots to those favorite words of conservatives: "law 'n' order." And criticizes by implication the Black Lives Matter movement: people who criticize the police. Stop implying bias every time the police kill a citizen. Yes, Pence actually said that.

Quijano: Quotes black Republican Senator Scott of South Carolina, who said he knows what it feels like to be targeted by police just because of skin color. She asks Pence if Scott is wrong.

Pence: What Donald and I are saying is let's not have the reflex of blaming the police automatically.

Kaine: Trump has called immigrants rapists. He's called women pigs. He called an Indiana judge a Mexican. He perpetuated the bigoted lie that President Obama wasn't born in this country. The disrespect is coming from the top of that campaign. It's an insult-driven campaign.

9:38: What do you tell undocumented immigrants who've committed no crimes that they're going to be deported anyway?

Pence is opening himself up to an attack on Trump's immigrant stance. Pence counters "insult-driven campaign" with Hillary's "basket of deplorables."

Kaine: "Hillary apologized for that remark. When has Trump ever apologized?" Trump wants to deport 11 million people, and he even wants to get rid of birthright citizenship. "I can't believe that my opponent is going to sit here and defend a deportation force in this country."

Pence gives long answer, trying to soften Trump's very well documented attitude toward immigrants. Doesn't really work.

9:46: Terrorism. Has threat increased or decreased? (Here's a question that should be in Pence's wheelhouse.)

Kaine gets it in twice: "Hillary was on the team that got Bin Laden. Donald Trump can't start a twitter war with Miss Universe without shooting himself in the foot. He has no plan for terrorism. He wants to fire all the generals and he loves dictators. Trump believes that the world will be safer if more nations have nuclear weapons." (Kaine takes charge of this topic!)

Pence: "Did you work on that answer a really long time?" (Weak, Pence.) But he gets on message: America is weaker since Obama took office. "My heart breaks," says Pence, over the spectacle of the military failures under Obama.

Quijano: Governor Pence, Trump has advocated "extreme vetting" of foreigners, which wouldn't have prevented several recent terrorist attacks. What would you do to prevent home-grown terrorism?

Pence: Ignores the question, goes with "extreme vetting" of foreigners.

Kaine: We want to keep people out if they're dangerous. Trump and Pence say all Mexicans are dangerous, all Muslims are dangerous.

Quijano asks Kaine what Hillary meant by her call for "an intelligence surge."

Kaine is ready for that question. Strangely, Pence did not seem ready for the terrorism question, or he was somewhat flummoxed by the direction it took.

9:56: Let's talk about the situation in Syria.

Pence: determined to get in Hillary's private email server. Score!

Quijano has completely lost control of these two. "I want to turn now to Syria," she insists. Does the U.S. have a responsibility to protect Syrian civilians?

Pence: Takes the opportunity to talk about Obama's weakness, the light motif of the evening. But his answer to the question? "Immediately establish safe zones." Provocations by Russia need to be met with American strength. Military strikes! Yeah, that's the ticket!

Kaine takes the opening to go after the Trump-Pence love affair with Vladimir Putin. Brings up failure to pay taxes again. Trump was not supporting the troops after 9/11 by not paying taxes. Zing.

Quijano: Pence, how would you set up safe zones?

Pence doesn't answer that question. Starts trying to defend Trump's failure to pay taxes. "We just need American strength." "Try Red Bull!" someone does not yell from the audience, much to my disappointment.

Kaine: asks Pence, "Do you think more nuclear weapons in the world will make us safer?" Pence seems a little stunned by the bluntness of the question. "Six times I've said to Mr. Pence tonight that I don't know how he can defend Trump's failure to pay taxes." Kaine turns the table on being strong with Russia: "You might start by not calling Putin a strong leader and saying you admire him more than Obama." Pence back on his heels. Pence shaking his head "no" at Kaine but is speechless.

Kaine came tonight for a street fight. Pence came for a prayer circle. The contrast is stark between the two, and apparently no one expected Kaine to be such a bruiser.

Kaine boring in on Trump and Putin: "If you can't tell the difference between dictatorship and leadership, then you have no business being president." True dat!

10:16: North Korea and Iran and nuclear weapons. What specific steps would you take to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons capable of reaching the United States?

Pence: We're going to go back to the days of "peace through strength." Pivots to Clinton Foundation. Implies it was all crooked, "pay-to-play."

Kaine: totally ready to talk about Clinton Foundation. Smacks his lips as he begins to compare the Clinton Foundation with the Trump Foundation. Oh boy!

Quijano: Mr. Pence, I'll let you respond, but I'll remind you that we're supposed to be talking about North Korea.

Pence: 33,000 emails! (This is more like a school-yard brawl, where both little boys pick up stray rocks and hurl them at each other.)

10:23: Social issues. Can you talk about a time when you had to balance your personal beliefs and your public service. (Good question!)

Kaine: Dives right in to his Catholic upbringing. Catholic Church is against death penalty, and so am I, but I was the governor of a state that had the death penalty. I took an oath to uphold the law. It was very difficult to allow executions to go forward. Those of us with deep faith views can't impose those views on everybody else.

Pence: Personal decision for Christ when I was in college. Born again, yep! Sanctity of life. He's wrapping himself in a doctrinaire anti-abortion robe, without admitting that he's ever had a bad moment meshing his personal beliefs with his performance in office. He missed the point of the question.

Kaine: Let's talk about abortion. We support Roe v. Wade. We trust American women to make their own decisions, and we don't believe that women should be punished for those decisions. Governor Pence has said he wants to put Roe v. Wade on the ash heap of history. "You should live your moral values, but the last thing the law should do is punish women for making their own decisions."

Final Question: Senator Kaine, what will you do to reunify the country after such a divisive campaign?

Kaine: Hillary Clinton has a track record of working across the aisle to get things done, and so do I. After Election Day, the goal will be to work together.

Same question to Pence. He recites the previous talking points about weak America, broken America, America in need of the healing embrace of Donald Trump.

"We Are Chasing Them. They Are Retreating to the Back"

Evidence that poor Mike Pence has become the Baghdad Bob of the Trump campaign.

I've found myself clenching up repeatedly since January 20th, wondering if this or that move by President Obama, this or that statement, this or that appointment to the cabinet, will be the ten-penny nail that seals his coffin and destroys his presidency. Sometimes I feel like frost-heaved soil, alternately thawing with the election and the Inauguration, and then freezing up again at the sight of too many Wall Street Boys in the Obama administration or too many fainting goats among the Democrats in Congress.

I'm tired of winter. I'm tired of fear. I've decided to relax and enjoy the Obama administration.

A smart man in the White House! A calm man. A thoughtful man. A man who can demand that the CEO of General Motors clean out his desk for abysmal performance, and the CEO of General Motors cleans out his desk! A man who is respected and even loved abroad, instead of a wince-inducing buffoon who bullied and blustered and proved on a daily basis that he was in way over his head. (Every time Fox News plays nostalgic TV footage of their hero, George W. Bush, Obama's ratings just go higher.)

And about those approval ratings. The newest polling shows that "the number of Americans who believe that the nation is headed in the right direction has roughly tripled since Barack Obama's election," and the American public actually seems to understand who was responsible for the economic meltdown (it ain't Obama). Despite the universal ululating of the Lilliputian Right, the Limbaugh-ettes who scream "socialism," the Dick Cheneys who intimate that our president is essentially a traitor, the Congressional Republicans who look increasingly like the flying monkeys who served the Wicked Witch of the West ... our president has the people solidly behind him and behind his agenda to change the policies of the last president.

I'm through holding my breath every time the cable-talkers tell me that Obama's presidency has failed because there's a chance that Wall Street or even Main Street is unhappy ("Morning Joe," I'm looking in your general direction). The special election yesterday in the NY-20 to fill the congressional seat vacated by Kirsten Gillibrand is, if anything and even though it isn't decided, proof that people in that Republican-leaning New York district are NOT willing to push back against the Obama administration.

If the American people cared what Congressional Republicans had to say, we would have a different situation on our hands. But the American people don't care what Congressional Republican have to say, aren't listening to them, and the more John Boehner and Mike Pence put both hands on their hips and stamp their feet, the more the American people can't stand the sight of them. (Congresswoman Virginia Foxx is now crying on cue as often as Glenn Beck, and with the same evident purpose of proving how superior her patriotism is to any Democrat's. No one cares.) We don't see any indication yet that the vast public is willing to run back into the baleful embrace of the same political/economic philosophy that landed us in this awful soup.

So I'm through with fear, through with holding my breath, through with jumping at the sound of squeaking hinges. I'm going to enjoy this moment in American history.

Oh, who am I kidding? I'll be back at my worry-beads before the sun goes down on the daffodils.

Failure to Launch

Congressional Republicans are now operating out of a parallel universe in which they think it's perfectly reasonable to release a "budget" that contains almost no numbers, except the imperative straight out of 1890 to reduce the tax rate on the richest among us to a flat 10 percent.

House Minority Leader John Boehner held up the royal-blue-bound 19-page Republican pamphlet yesterday at a big press conference and actually crowed: "Two nights ago, the president said we haven't seen a budget yet of the Republicans. Well, it's not true, because here it is Mr. President."

Thereby proving that Republican Congressional leaders CAN see their own mirages.

Mike Pence, chair of the House Republican Conference of hyper-conservatives, stood behind Boehner and looked like he was working on a good-sized kidney stone. But Mike Pence always looks that way, and turns out that yesterday's big roll-out of the Republican non-budget was mainly Pence's idea. According to Glenn Thrush at Politico, Pence prevailed over the more cautious Eric Cantor, Minority Whip, who is said to be "embarrassed" about this whole fiasco. We noted that Cantor got himself out of that room yesterday before the questions started flying.