Spiro Agnew

Gerald Ford’s Pardoning Of Richard Nixon 44 Years Ago Today Should NOT Be Repeated For Donald Trump When And If Mike Pence Becomes President

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On this day, 44 years ago, President Gerald Ford pardoned former President Richard Nixon, immediately undermining his Presidency, and insuring his defeat in a close race with Jimmy Carter for a full term in the Presidency in the election of 1976.

Ford was appointed Vice President under the terms of the 25th Amendment in October 1973, and confirmed and sworn in two months later, after Vice President Spiro Agnew resigned due to his own scandalous behavior.

Gerald Ford had nothing to do with the Watergate scandal, but by pardoning Nixon, while others involved in the scandal went to prison, he became highly controversial, and was attacked and vilified by many.

A quarter century later, however, Ford’s reputation revived, when a major critic, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, arranged for an award to be given to the former President, the John F. Kennedy library “Profile in Courage Award”.

Ford looks much better in history now, and in many ways, is the model of what an old style Republican President should be like, in the age of Donald Trump.

But this occasion of the pardoning of Richard Nixon brings to mind the idea that at some point, Donald Trump might be pardoned for his crimes, and the answer should be absolutely not, as Trump has gone way beyond Richard Nixon in his crimes, and will be shown to have committed treason, which no one has ever said Nixon did.

IF Vice President Mike Pence overcomes suspicions of his own collaboration and involvement in this massive scandal we are dealing with now, the worst thing he could do is pardon Donald Trump.

Unfortunately, there is no legal way to prevent such an action, but if it occurs, there will be a firestorm much worse than Ford experienced in 1974, and it would insure that Mike Pence would have no chance to be elected for a full term.

It would also further cement the demise of the Republican Party reputation, and likely, the future of the party under that name, and it could lead to the destruction of that party apparatus, and its replacement by a new mainstream conservative oriented political party.

Spiro Agnew Lawyer Says Donald Trump Should Resign, For The Good Of The Nation, As Agnew And Richard Nixon Did

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Martin London, the attorney who represented Vice President Spiro Agnew in 1973, when Agnew resigned under fire, has come out and said Donald Trump should resign for the good of the nation.

London also says that things will not get better for Trump, as more revelations come out, and that Trump would be helping his family, and possibly saving them from legal dangers, if he would agree to resign.

As bad as Spiro Agnew and Richard Nixon were, they had the dignity to realize that time was up, and that they should clean the slate by resigning, and therefore, retain some level of dignity.

But Donald Trump is not Spiro Agnew nor Richard Nixon, so the odds of his agreeing to leave the Presidency are not good.

He may have to be pulled kicking and screaming out of the Oval Office by Secret Service agents, a hard to imagine scenario.

But also, the nation could be in danger, and Trump could attempt to declare martial law and suspend the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and one would hope he would be stopped by the Justice Department, the Secret Service, and the military leadership, if such a dastardly deed were attempted.

Impeachment Investigations Of Government Officials In American History Mostly Without Basis, More For Political Purposes

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The impeachment of Donald Trump seems possible in 2019 IF the Democrats gain control of the House of Representatives, which seems highly likely, based upon polls 100 days out, and with the reminder that the party out of the White House always gains seats in the midterm elections, with the exceptions of 1934 under Franklin D. Roosevelt and 2002 under George W. Bush.

Having said that, it is reality that impeachment does not lead to convictions and removals from office, with the exception of seven federal district court judges over the long span of American history.

Richard Nixon would have been an exception if he had not resigned, but Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton both were found not guilty in their impeachment trials.

Other Presidents have been threatened with impeachment, but it was more just a threat or simply could not gain enough support in the House of Representatives to lead to impeachment.

That list of threatened impeachments include: John Tyler in 1842 and 1843; James Buchanan in 1860; Ulysses S. Grant in 1876; Herbert Hoover in 1933; Harry Truman in 1951; Ronald Reagan in 1987; George H. W. Bush in 1991; George W. Bush in 2008; Barack Obama in 2013: and Donald Trump in 2017 and 2018. Notice most of these were not serious, and in many cases occurred in the last year of the President’s term or near the end of his last term in office.

Vice Presidents who have faced impeachment threats are: Schuyler Colfax in 1873, as he was leaving the Grant Administration; Spiro Agnew in 1973 as he neared resignation due to scandal under the Nixon Administration; George H. W. Bush in 1987 as the Iran Contra scandal emerged; and Dick Cheney in 2007 as the second Bush Administration dealt with the Iraq War continuation. None of them gained any traction.

Impeachment motions against Cabinet officers and other federal officials have been mostly just a gesture, a threat, as with, for example, Attorney General Eric Holder in 2013; Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez in 2007; and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in 2004. Most recently threatened with impeachment is Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein in the past few days, but unlikely to gain any traction, more used as a political ploy.

Ranking Vice Presidents And Their Influence On Their Presidents, From Richard Nixon To Mike Pence

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Recent information has made it clear that Vice President Mike Pence is a weak Vice President, apparently intimidated by President Donald Trump, and unwilling to challenge him in any way.

In fact, Mike Pence has fawned over Donald Trump in a very degrading way and manner, that we have never seen in any other modern Vice President.

Until Richard Nixon under Dwight D. Eisenhower, no Vice President ever had much impact on their President.

Nixon became the first activist Vice President, given lots of assignments and work, but never openly fawning on Ike.

Lyndon B. Johnson under John F. Kennedy was not utilized very effectively, but he never kowtowed to Kennedy.

Hubert Humphrey under LBJ knew he had to support the Vietnam War, but did not lose his dignity in the process.

Spiro Agnew under Richard Nixon actually did a lot of work attacking the news media for Nixon, although he was poorly treated and abandoned by Nixon when he caused his own legal trouble, that forced him out of office.

Gerald Ford kept his dignity under Nixon in the eight months he was Vice President, before succeeding Nixon in the White House.

Nelson Rockefeller was given responsibilities by Gerald Ford, more than anyone since Nixon under Ike.

Walter Mondale became the most active and engaged Vice President, totally on the same wave length with Jimmy Carter.

George H. W. Bush, while not a “bosom buddy” of Ronald Reagan, played an important role and had total respect of Reagan.

Dan Quayle was a disaster under George H. W. Bush, and a real embarrassment, but Bush always treated him with respect, nevertheless, and kept him on the ticket for 1992.

Al Gore was very close and involved with Bill Clinton, until the Monica Lewinsky Scandal, which led to a breach never fully healed.

Dick Cheney was almost President in the sense that he was leaned on by George W. Bush in his first term, losing some of his power and input in the second term.

Joe Biden had the closest, most intimate relationship with Barack Obama, at least on the level of Walter Mondale with Jimmy Carter, and they remain close today, as do Mondale and Carter.

And now, Mike Pence, who seems afraid of his boss, Donald Trump, and it seems clear he has no guts to challenge Trump on anything, making him look totally wimpy and weak.

We are in a constitutional crisis, but Mike Pence is not willing to fight for the country and its democracy, but rather for Tyrant Donald Trump, so he will go down in history as a disgraceful Vice President, with no guts or courage to challenge Trump, and take away his authority under the 25th Amendment!

So, in conclusion, ranking the last 13 Vice Presidents in influence, one would say the ranking would be:

Joe Biden and Walter Mondale tied for first

Cheney, Gore and Bush tied for second.

Rockefeller and Nixon tied for third.

Johnson and Humphrey tied for fourth.

Ford, for shortage of time and circumstances, fifth.

Pence might be sixth, ahead of Agnew and Quayle at the bottom of the list.

Our future with Vice President Pence is not promising!

Will The Genuine Mike Pence Reveal Himself? Mixed Views Of How Pence Is Performing As Vice President

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After 16 months in office, Vice President Mike Pence comes across different ways to different observers, so there are mixed views of how he is performing as Vice President.

Some praise him as totally loyal to the President, standing behind him to his right in every photo when Donald Trump pontificates and makes embarrassing and divisive statements, with many of them containing lies on a consistent basis.

Others see him as lacking the moral and ethical fiber that it is claimed he has, as a “good Christian”, who wears his religion on his sleeve.

Others see him as manipulative and deceitful, as it is claimed he is planning his own future, and what he perceives as his eventual ascension to the Presidency.

Others see him as complicit in the scandals surrounding Donald Trump, and think he will be implicated and be forced to resign as Vice President, as occurred to Spiro Agnew under Richard Nixon in 1973.

Is Mike Pence anything like Joe Biden under Barack Obama? Or anything like Al Gore under Bill Clinton? Or anything like Walter Mondale under Jimmy Carter? Or anything like Gerald Ford under Richard Nixon?

Or is he more like Dick Cheney under George W. Bush? Or anything like Dan Quayle under George H. W. Bush? Or anything like George H. W. Bush under Ronald Reagan?

Who is the “real” Mike Pence?

Will he add to the distinction of the office we have seen under many recent Vice Presidents?

Or will he stand out as one of the worst, and possibly most corrupt, Vice Presidents, in the vein of Spiro Agnew?

The nation is waiting to see how Mike Pence turns out, and it is an important issue for the nation at large.

Former Living Vice Presidents To Be Proud Of: Walter Mondale, Al Gore, Joe Biden

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Today, January 5, marks the 90th Birthday of former Vice President Walter Mondale.

Two days ago, when Vice President Mike Pence swore in Doug Jones and Tina Smith as new Senators from Alabama and Minnesota, we had Mondale join Joe Biden, and we had a rare scene of three Vice Presidents together.

Biden came to DC to be there for his good friend, Doug Jones, and Mondale was in DC to support a new Minnesota Senator, Tina Smith.

It brought back memories of when Mondale was Vice President under Jimmy Carter from 1977-1981, and when Joe Biden was Vice President under Barack Obama from 2009-2017.

Both Vice Presidents were extremely close to their Presidents, and both played a major role in adding to the stature and influence of the Vice Presidency.

Also, with Mondale reaching the age of 90, it marks the second President and Vice President who reached the age of 90, after Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

It will be 37 years out of office for Jimmy Carter and Walter Mondale on January 20, an all time record out of office for any President and Vice President.

Also, Mondale became today the sixth Vice President to reach the age of 90, along with three Presidents who served as Vice President–John Adams, Gerald Ford, George H. W. Bush–and two Vice Presidents who lived longer than any of the others—John Nance Garner under Franklin D. Roosevelt, living to age 98, and Levi Morton under Benjamin Harrison, living to age 96.

The scene of three Vice Presidents together also brought back the tragic result of the Presidential Election of 2000, when Vice President Al Gore under Bill Clinton from 1993-2001, won the national popular vote by 540,000, and yet lost the Electoral College 271-266, when the Republican majority Supreme Court ruled in favor of George W. Bush, awarding Florida to Bush by 537 votes out of a total of 6 million.

One has to wonder how Al Gore would have been as President, with the assurance that he would have done better than Bush.

The scene of Mike Pence posing with Mondale and Biden also sobers us that he is likely to become the 46th President this year, unless he is shown to have collaborated on the Russian collusion, and if so, could be the second Vice President to resign due to scandal, after Spiro Agnew in 1973.

Are We On The Way To President Paul Ryan?

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With the growing evidence of Russian collusion and lying by Donald Trump, Mike Pence, and many others in the administration, the possibility is growing of the first time in American history where the Speaker of the House of Representatives might become President by succession.

It could have happened in 1974 had there not been the 25th Amendment, added to the Constitution in 1967.

That amendment allowed for the appointment of Gerald Ford to replace Spiro Agnew, and within eight months of becoming Vice President, Ford became President.

If this had not been able to happen, there would have been no Vice President for ten months, and Speaker of the House Carl Albert of Oklahoma would have become President, instead of Gerald Ford, when Richard Nixon resigned on August 9, 1974.

Ryan may very well have been aware of Russian collusion in the eyes of some observers, but unless that is proved to be so, he would become President if Mike Pence was forced out, and Donald Trump was forced out, and if there was no time to select a new Vice President under the 25th Amendment.

Ryan, not at all admired, and much criticized by this blogger in 2012, when he was the Vice Presidential nominee for Mitt Romney. would be a terrible successor, with his Ayn Rand libertarian philosophy, and his desire to privatize Medicare and Social Security, and end the concept of government assistance to the needy through Medicaid, Food Stamps, and aid to dependent children.

We are in a time frame where Donald Trump is a nightmare, but Mike Pence, with his overtly theocratic view of religion and government is a different nightmare, and Ryan is a third example of what horrible choices the nation faces from the results of the Presidential Election of 2016.

It will take decades to recover the damage already done, and the damage yet to be done.

Mike Pence And Spiro Agnew: Two Crooked Vice Presidents?

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It is seemingly a possibility that Vice President Mike Pence could be involved in coverup of Russian collusion in the 2016 Presidential Election, and that he has often lied about his involvement in that corrupt action.

Pence was the leader of the transition team for Donald Trump, and had to know about the illegal actions of Michael Flynn in that transition period, and in the 25 days that Flynn was National Security Adviser, before he was fired.

Pence is deeply enmeshed in the scandal that is being revealed by the investigation of Robert Mueller, and he may not survive to succeed Donald Trump, because he failed to keep himself separate from the emerging scandal.

This is very different than Gerald Ford, who insured by his words and actions that he could not be accused of any involvement in the Watergate Scandal under Richard Nixon.

Ford had replaced Spiro Agnew in the Vice Presidency under the 25th Amendment, with Agnew involved in conspiracy, bribery, extortion and tax fraud, having accepted payments from contractors during his time as Governor of Maryland and even the Vice Presidency itself, and resigned, having pleaded guilty to one felony charge of tax evasion.

So it could be that Mike Pence will go down in history as the second crooked Vice President forced out of office.

Pence is about to be interviewed by Robert Mueller, and Pence has had his own personal lawyer for months, so stay tuned as to what might happen that no one would ever have conceived when the Trump Presidency began.

Michael Flynn Pleading Guilty A Sign Of Trouble For Donald Trump, His Family, And Mike Pence

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With former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn pleading guilty to lying to the FBI, the odds of Donald Trump leaving the Presidency sooner, rather than later, are growing astronomically.

This is a massive sign of trouble for Trump, for his children—Donald Trump, Jr, Ivanka Trump, and Jared Kushner—and even for Vice President Mike Pence, who was head of the transition team after the Presidential Election of 2016, all of whom seem clearly to have been involved in obstruction of justice in the investigation of Russian collusion in the campaign and election.

For the first time, we have a real danger of both the President and Vice President being in deep trouble, a constitutional crisis that we have never had before, although Vice President Spiro Agnew was forced out of office independently of Richard Nixon ten months before Nixon resigned.

Unfortunately, we do not have a Gerald Ford ready to take over, but instead the horror of Speaker of the House Paul Ryan or Senate President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch, both of whom could also be compromised in some form.

What a mess we have, and it is a challenge to the corrupt Republican controlled Congress, which seems ready to ignore all of the facts and details, and instead charge ahead at giving more to the wealthy through tax law, and wishing to destroy the New Deal and Great Society long term.

So this is a time for public demonstrations and marches, and demands that the Tea Party mentality of the Republican Party be repudiated eleven months from now, but all necessary legal steps be taken to stop the financial raping of the American people through their corrupt Republican representatives.

This is a time of despair, as little seems to be available short term to stop the disgrace that is going on as the year 2017 comes to an end in four weeks.

Seven Living Vice Presidents, Most For Second Time In American History, And Longevity Of Presidents And First Ladies

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Here we are near the end of the first year of the Donald Trump Presidency, and we have seven living Vice Presidents of the United States, the second time we have had that number.

The first time was from the inauguration of Bill Clinton on January 20, 1993 to the death of Richard Nixon on April 22, 1994.

At that time, we had seven living Vice Presidents, including Richard Nixon, Spiro Agnew, Gerald Ford, Walter Mondale, George H. W. Bush, Dan Quayle, and the incumbent Vice President, Al Gore.

So while we have six living Presidents for the fourth time, after 1861-1862, 1993-1994, and 2001-2004, now we have seen seven Vice Presidents for the second time, due to the fact that while Ronald Reagan passed away in 2004, his vice President and his successor as President, George H. W. Bush, is about to break the longevity record held by Gerald Ford. Bush passed Reagan’s age on October 11, and will pass Ford on November 25, just two weeks from today.

The earliest Vice President still alive is Walter Mondale, who has lived 37 years beyond his time in office, as has his boss, Jimmy Carter, an all time record for both. Mondale will be 90 years of age on January 5, making for the second Presidential-Vice Presidential team to reach age 90 after Ronald Reagan and George H. W. Bush.

George H. W. Bush is the only one of the living Vice Presidents to have also served as President, while his Vice President, Dan Quayle, is now 70 years old.

Al Gore served under Bill Clinton, and is now 69 years old.

Dick Cheney served under George W. Bush, and is now 76 years old.

Joe Biden served under Barack Obama, and is now 75 years old as of his birthday on November 20.

And the incumbent Vice President, Mike Pence is now 58 years old.

If all seven living Vice Presidents live beyond April 22, 2018, it will be the longest time we have had seven Vice Presidents alive at the same time, and by that time, Jimmy Carter will have passed Gerald Ford as longest lived (on March 16, 2018), but of course still 111 days behind George H. W. Bush, if both former Presidents are still alive then.

Additionally, we have the amazing statistic that four Presidents in a row have lived beyond the age of 90, and all four of their First Ladies have now reached 90 as well, with Rosalyn Carter having reached it in August, and previously the cases of Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, and Barbara Bush. Finally, Lady Bird Johnson and Bess Truman also reached the age of 90, although their husbands did not do so, although Harry Truman lived beyond the age of 89.