Pretty damn high - other than breaking tie votes in the senate being Trump’s replacement is basically what Pence was elected to do.
And I throw up in my mouth every time I hear about that visit. Seriously, I find the presence of a Christian fanatic in such close proximity to my deceased Jewish relatives offensive. He has no respect for any religion other than his own. It was strictly posturing for his own political career.
Do keep in mind that those of us in Indiana who lived with him as governor for four years are not nearly so eager to have him take over. Consider that. He is reviled here, except among similar religous fanatics.
Yes, he understands how government works - that’s the problem. He might actually get some of his hateful, Republic-of-Gilead bullshit passed if he’s PotUS.
He might indeed, not least because the media will fall all over themselves celebrating the “return to normalcy” in our government and give him an extended honeymoon of gushing coverage.
I wouldn’t go that far. First of all, he is a fundie Christian, but I don’t believe he’s at “fanatic” level. Sorry, I just don’t. There’s so much hyperbole being thrown around by both sides non-stop in every political discussion nowadays. A “fanatic” Christian is someone like John Ashcroft from the Bush Administration. Pence is not at that level. He’s a bog-standard Middle American conservative Christian, who virtue-signals to his evangelical supporters. I don’t think he is some horrific Gilead-like theocrat, he’s just a bitch.
Mike Pence has said and done a lot of stuff that makes my blood boil, but let’s please, please keep some perspective here. There are places in the world where people are being massacred because they’re the wrong religion.
Let’s be clear here, we are basically on the same page on how we feel about this administration. But I wish everyone would dial back the alarmism.
What are you basing this on? There have been several presidents with major health conditions in the 20th century, quick googling turns up this: 5 Presidents Who Hid Their Health Issues | HISTORY . And certainly he’s healthier than William Henry Harrison, who died in office of pneumonia!
The “Trump is in horrible health” thing has become accepted as gospel among Trump’s haters because it fits the narrative of him being unqualified in every way, and since he himself makes so many cracks about other peoples’ bodies and appearances, he IS sort of asking people to give it back to him.
Nevertheless, he DOESN’T seem to be particularly unhealthy for his age, regardless of how many unflattering photos turn up of his gut or his ass.
By the time the average American male reaches Trump’s age, he’s drank a lot of alcohol, smoked a lot of tobacco, or both, over the course of his life. Trump, apparently, has never done either. Generally, there are two ways to increase your chances of living to an old age and being relatively healthy, while still indulging in some vices. 1. Eat an unhealthy or immoderate diet, but don’t smoke or drink alcohol, and engage in a decent amount of physical movement to burn off the calories. 2. Smoke and drink, but eat a healthy diet, and engage in a lot of physical movement (walk around a lot.) The latter approach is favored by some European and Asian countries, the former approach seems to be more common in America.
By abstaining from tobacco and alcohol, Trump has allowed himself some leeway to overindulge in food and still stay relatively healthy. If Trump had been smoking and drinking alcohol (particularly high-calorie beer and sugary mixed drinks) for all his life, he would most likely NOT be in good health at all right now, with a terrible risk for heart disease or diabetes.
I’m also guessing that Trump physically moves around a lot, despite what most people might assume - he has a short attention span, and people with short attention spans, especially high-powered businesspeople, tend to move around a lot. His stream-of-consciousness style of speech and his constant gesticulations lead me to believe that when he’s at work, he spends a lot of time pacing around, standing up and sitting down and standing back up for no reason, and running around from room to room yelling and ordering people around. I could be wrong, but that kind of behavior is common with guys who act like Trump acts.
So, I guess, long story short, the image of Trump as some kind of sedentary Jabba the Hutt-like hedonistic voluptuary, strikes me as more of a convenient story to fit a narrative, than reality.
Note that he could look like Michael Phelps and I’d still think he was an asshole. I’m just addressing the oft-repeated references to him supposedly being in poor health.
The man won’t eat dinner in public with a woman present among a group of people or engage in a business meeting with women present without a chaperone for himself. That’s not a one-on-one meeting, it’s a GROUP with just one woman who is not his wife present - that’s not normal even among evangelicals.
This isn’t something I started just yesterday - I’ve been saying this about Pence since his first year as governor of Indiana.
Here’s some more gems:
He abolished the ONE clinic in Scott County, Indiana that did HIV screening, and he did it based on religious reasons.
He signed a law that permitted religious, gender, and sexual orientation discrimination in Indiana.
He signed into law a bill banning abortion even in the case of fetal abnormalities that was later struck down as unconstitutional.
He attempted to ban all Syrian refugees from entering Indiana. Again, struck down as unconstitutional.
He is opposed to sex education and opposed to condom use, favoring only abstinence as birth control.
He is opposed to LGBTQ rights. He has publicaly stated that his belief that any sexual activity outside of heterosexual marriage spreads HIV.
He supports sexual orientation “therapy” to change non-heterosexual people into heterosexuals.
He is opposed to homosexuals serving in the military. He is opposed to efforts to ban sexual orientation discrimination in the workplace. He also opposed the Matthew Shepard Hate Crime Prevention Act
Needless to say, he’s against same-sex marriage.
He wants to go back to the gold standard for our money.
He opposes raising the minimum wage.
Probably not surprising, he’s anti-union.
He voted against Medicare Part D, the prescription act that helps old people get their medications (even if the current structure is highly flawed). Of course, he’s also opposed to the Affordable Care Act. He has consistently voted against anything that would hold tobacco companies responsible for the addiction, poor health, and death their product provides.
He is opposed to birthright citizenship as provided in the 14th amendment of the constitution. Naturally, he is also opposed to the DREAM act.
He wants to either cut out social security or privatize it.
He was pro war for Iraq, wants to keep the Guantanamo Bay facility open forever, has little interest in ever trying the accused there, and if so, wants it done by military tribunal in secret rather than open court.
He is, in keeping with the Christian fringe, wildly pro-Israel but not because he likes Jews, it’s because of the whole end-times prophecy thing that requires a state of Israel. He thinks the excesses and abuses of the current Israeli government are just fine and dandy and opposes any form of Palestinian state. He doesn’t like Jews as people, he likes Jews as a harbinger of the Apocalypse he eagerly awaits as the time his god comes back to Earth and kills a few billion people because they don’t believe the way he does.
Pence is a climate change denier.
He also denies the validity of evolution.
He wants more and harsher sentences for marijuana, which is at odds with a significant portion of the country as a whole, starting with 10 year minimum sentences and going up from there.
He wrote the attorney general in 2014 saying he would not have the state of Indiana comply with prison rape reduction because it was “too expensive” - get this, he’s opposed to rape prevention because it’s not free.
Right, we’re just talking about a man who doesn’t trust his own self to be near an adult woman without his wife holding his leash, who thinks the only valid form of birth control is abstinence, and who thinks it’s “too expensive” to prevent rape. Among other things.
Holding the leash? I think you’re over-egging it there. Given the effect of just a claim of impropriety, not being alone with another woman is actually a clever move.
**It is not about being ALONE with another women, it’s about having ANY woman present at all. ** Hence, my comment about a PUBLIC dinner. Doesn’t matter if there are 12 other people in the room, Pence doesn’t want just one person out of those 12 to be a woman unless his wife is there. So if he was president there would be either no cabinet meetings unless his wife was also present or no women in his cabinet. As just one example. Which is a really “screw you” to any woman politician or businesswoman who wants to do business - Pence will not suffer her presence in a room full of other people without his own personal chaperone. *Did that completely escape you? It’s not about being alone with a woman, it’s about having women anywhere near him. * Hence, my comment about Republic of Gilead - he doesn’t want women in public life because it would interfere with those oh-so-vulnerable men who, apparently, can’t be trusted to control themselves. And why would I want someone so lacking self-control at the helm of the nation?
That was an issue with him as governor - a business man wants to meet with the governor for whatever reason? Fine, set up an appointment. A businesswoman wants to meet with the governor? Whoa - that is going to take some time to set up. When is Mrs. Pence available? Can we coordinate schedules? Nope, sorry, can’t do it this week. Or next month. Oh, sorry, now running for vice president so screw you, business lady, why aren’t you home making babies anyway?
Maybe this doesn’t concern you, but half of us in this country would like to be treated as full human beings and citizens just like the other half is.
That’s part of the problem with trying to get people to understand the problem with Pence - they don’t listen to what is actually being said, they downplay his behavior, they make excuses. And I get it - he does look so clean cut, he’s well spoken, he is polished and polite. You want to believe better of him. He’s very, very good at being a politician, at working a crowd. It’s a pretty veneer over a very nasty, hateful core.
Pence (and Jack Kingston) were highly critical of Clinton for voting for a war that they themselves voted for.
Along with a shitload of other two-faced Republicans.
First, he definitely fits the risk profile for heart attack and stroke. He’s on cholesterol-lowering meds, he’s overweight, possibly even obese, and he’s a type-A personality who we know from reports goes off into angry tirades.
Second, I have no idea where you get ‘accepted gospel’ from. I’d love to see him have a major stroke, but I don’t think I’m lucky enough for that to happen.
Yeah, sure, let me round up a bunch of Indiana businesswomen and get them memberships here and let them tell you themselves… get right on that…
Unlike most of you I didn’t read about Pence on the internet, I live with him as governor for four years. Thus, most of my sources are from people in real life and not on the internet. I’ll see what I can find that you will find acceptable.
Yeah, sure, enough TV cameras Pence will suffer the presence of women because he’s an opportunistic son of a bitch but access to him if you’re not a white, male, evangelical Christian (his definition) is limited. Everyone else is either sitting in the back of the bus or left waiting at the curb. That’s what we learned in Indiana, and why so many of us here do NOT want him in charge of the country even if we loathe and despise and are nauseated by Trump.
You may well be right, but “moving around a lot,” as you describe it, =/= exercise. Pacing and yelling at people might get your heart rate up, but they aren’t particularly good for you.
As far as we can tell, the only real exercise he engages in is golfing, and even then, I think he always uses a golf cart. And, as was well-documented last year, it appears that he believes that exercise actually reduces your lifespan. In addition, he brags about only sleeping three to four hours a night, which is another lifestyle choice that few doctors would endorse.
He also may well simply be blessed with good genes. Yes, a poor diet, a sedentary lifestyle, and chronic sleep deprivation correlate with health risks and earlier death, but it’s not a 100% correlation. Some people can and do live like that and live just as long as those who take better care of themselves. But, as a general rule, Trump’s lifestyle isn’t one that’s recommended for healthy living.
