Posted on 06/20/2017 7:11:48 PM PDT by Kaslin
Al Franken publicly frets what left-wing writers have been warning about for weeks — President Pence
Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) said this week what liberal writers have been warning about for weeks: Impeaching and removing President Donald Trump could backfire.
The replacement for Trump, as fantastical as it would be to imagine his removal, would still not be defeated 2016 contender Hillary Clinton or a progressive in good standing. It would be Vice President Mike Pence.
Franken told the International Business Times during a stop on his book tour that “everything points” to collusion between Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 election campaign. Bu
"Pence ran the transition and some of the very worst nominees, I felt — [Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott] Pruitt, [Education Secretary Betsy] DeVos, [Health and Human Services Secretary Tom] Price, [Office of Management and Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney — were Pence selections, clearly, I think," he said. "He's ideological, I consider him a zealot, and I think that in terms of a lot of domestic policy certainly would be worse than Trump."
Most Democratic lawmakers have not voiced such concerns out loud. Instead, 27 members of the House or Senate have discussed at least the possibility of impeachment, with some ready to draw up papers right now.
But Franken is far from alone on the Left in worrying that a President Pence would be worse for them.
"Removing Trump would just replace him with someone who is also terrible in his own right: Mike Pence," Alex Bolinger wrote this month on LGTBQ Nation. "While there are legitimate reasons for advocating that Trump be removed from office (to show that Congress still believes in the rule of law, for example), better policy is not one of them."
Bolinger added that, "Maybe it's because Pence actually had a job in politics before becoming vice president that he seems less destructive than Trump. But that's unlikely."
Progressive journalist Megan Carpentier wrote last moth in Dame that Pence would be an improvement on style only:
"Pence may not tweet like a Ritalin-addicted teenager with an impulse-control problem, a deep sense of entitlement, and something to prove, and he probably has the good sense not to yell at other world leaders and constantly publicly praise the most murderous ones … but in terms of actual, actionable policy decisions, the idea that Mike Pence would somehow be preferable to the man who is enacting every policy Mike Pence would himself enact is, and always was, the product of a fevered imagination."
Jeff Alson, an engineer from Ann Arbor, Michigan, expressed similar sentiments at the online magazine In These Times last month.
"Pence ran the transition and some of the very worst nominees, I felt — [Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott] Pruitt, [Education Secretary Betsy] DeVos, [Health and Human Services Secretary Tom] Price, [Office of Management and Budget Director Mick] Mulvaney — were Pence selections, clearly, I think," he said. "He's ideological, I consider him a zealot, and I think that in terms of a lot of domestic policy certainly would be worse than Trump."
Most Democratic lawmakers have not voiced such concerns out loud. Instead, 27 members of the House or Senate have discussed at least the possibility of impeachment, with some ready to draw up papers right now.
But Franken is far from alone on the Left in worrying that a President Pence would be worse for them.
"Removing Trump would just replace him with someone who is also terrible in his own right: Mike Pence," Alex Bolinger wrote this month on LGTBQ Nation. "While there are legitimate reasons for advocating that Trump be removed from office (to show that Congress still believes in the rule of law, for example), better policy is not one of them."
Bolinger added that, "Maybe it's because Pence actually had a job in politics before becoming vice president that he seems less destructive than Trump. But that's unlikely."
Progressive journalist Megan Carpentier wrote last moth in Dame that Pence would be an improvement on style only:
"Pence may not tweet like a Ritalin-addicted teenager with an impulse-control problem, a deep sense of entitlement, and something to prove, and he probably has the good sense not to yell at other world leaders and constantly publicly praise the most murderous ones … but in terms of actual, actionable policy decisions, the idea that Mike Pence would somehow be preferable to the man who is enacting every policy Mike Pence would himself enact is, and always was, the product of a fevered imagination."
Jeff Alson, an engineer from Ann Arbor, Michigan, expressed similar sentiments at the online magazine In These Times last month.
Hepburn wrote that Pence, with a Republican Congress rallying behind him, would push through a much more conservative agenda than Trump could pass.
"And that's why liberal-minded Americans, and like-minded Canadians, should be hoping the U.S. Congress doesn't impeach Trump — at least not just right away," he wrote.
There is evidence that rank-and-file Democrats are thinking the same thing.
"Democrats should not even pursue impeachment," Brooklyn resident Kenneth Roff wrote in a letter to the editor of The New York Times. "It would be better to run against the presidency of Mr. Trump in 2018 than Mike Pence, a sane, mentally stable, true conservative who would become president if Mr. Trump were impeached and removed from office. But would that be putting politics before country?"
THEY KEEP LOSING !!
No need to pursue it much longer.
The trail on the Obama administration’s crimes is growing rapidly cold.
I feel like I read that twice.
I feel like I read that twice.
A lot of your article was double duty. Deja vu all over again.
SNOWY (Still Not Over Winning Yet) but I am getting a little bored with their constant bouts of whine & rage binges.
[Franken told the International Business Times during a stop on his book tour that “everything points” to collusion between Trump and the Russian government during the 2016 election campaign]
Sheer unadulterated bullshit.
Sorry about that
Dont worry, libs. If you are eager for a Pence presidency just wait till 2024. Only seven and a half years. Be patient.
That's Franken's superpower, y'know.
Funny how the dems are afraid to impeach trump because of the ideological competence of Pence and we were afraid to impeach Obama for fear of the imbecile Biden.
When you insist on living in an echo chamber (a.k.a, "safe space,") the result is to take the "blue pill," so that you believe your own propaganda (a.k.a., "fake news.")
They still don’t get it.
Trump is NOT going to be impeached. His approval ratings have gone UP since he was elected.
Dems, just like the mainstream old-style GOP are in an alternate state of reality, about Trump. Trump won Americans over, because he was for America.
Now, whether Trump lives up to those very high expectations or not, he has a huge positive public approval at this point.
Trump:
1) BUILD THE WALL
2) Promote American goods here, and abroad
(that is, MADE IN AMERICA goods)
These loony toons have been building the case for impeachment from the moment Trump was sworn in and only NOW does it dawn on them that impeachment means the Vice President assumes the office. Did they think Hillary would get the presidency if Trump left???
Al Franken is a big fat liar.
Just maybe SHOOTING republican congressmen at a baseball practice backfired? Handel won overwhelmingly among those who voted today.
Trump isn’t going to be impeached. Franken just said so. The so-called evidence is no evidence. That is what he just said between the lines
Are you sure this is the message you dumb asses want to stick with?
Pence is “sane” NOW. Wait until he’s President.
Pence is “sane” NOW. Wait until he’s President.
Oh, that's rich. A Democrat voter is suddenly worried about putting politics before country? What does he think the talk of impeachment without cause and the fantasy of Trump/Russia collusion is all about? Does he not understand that Democrats *always* put politics before country, and that they care for nothing other than power? Meh, if this guy cared about putting country first, he wouldn't vote Democrat.
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