Spiro T. Agnew, Impeachment and the Inoculation of Mike Pence
I have been politically aware since I was knee high to a grasshopper, about 8 years old in chronological terms. Why, why was someone so young, so politically aware? Well, one reason was probably the time I grew up in, the sixties and seventies. Also, my grandfather was active and articulate in the political world. I had a lot of respect for my grandfather. There was a lot of political discussion at family gatherings when I was a child, too. However, many people grow up as children of parents and family that are politically active and aware. Why did I become so aware, SO young? I think I have to thank Spiro T. Agnew for my continued intense awareness of politics.
Spiro T. Agnew was Richard Nixon’s vice president. He was somebody who had a rather distinctive look. Often I would see cartoons in the newspaper of him. Well once, my family was at this museum. We are wandering about paintings and sculptures and eventually end up in one area where there are some African carvings being displayed. One of them had a rather large nose. It looked a bit like a big hook, somewhat like caricatures I had seen of the Vice President. That big hook nose just looked a lot like the hook nose on Spiro T. Agnew.
I just kind of reflectively spit out in the middle of the museum, “Hey that one looks like Spiro Agnew!”
An entire room of adults broke up. They were laughing and laughing and laughing. I was like eight, nine years old. And that is a very powerful thing when you can make a joke like that, a political joke, and all the adults pay attention to you. That’s powerful. I think that is why I stayed so connected for so long and started so young. It was the heady feeling I had after the Agnew joke about the African carving in the museum. It was such powerful stuff.
So it was spooky for a child when the Watergate mess started to bring down the Nixon presidency. One realizes that perhaps the adults are not so sure of what is going on after all. At the beginning of his presidency, Agnew was Richard Nixon’s vice president, not Gerald Ford. Gerald Ford became vice-president much later. Spiro Agnew was the vice president while Watergate was percolating. As it evolves, it starts to become clear that the president is going to have to resign or be impeached. It’s looking like we might have a president named Spiro, but that is not what happened. Agnew starts to have some problems himself. The IRS starts some tax investigations around Agnew. One wonders why he suddenly got that attention. Was it because he was about to become president? Don’t really know to be honest. I was just a small kid. I do know that before Richard Nixon resigns, Spiro Agnew resigned as vice president of the United States.
That left a vacuum at vice president. And if Richard Nixon were to resign or be impeached that could make the Speaker of the House, a Democrat, the new president. And that’s a problem for the Republicans for sure. So the search is on for who is going to replace Spiro Agnew as Richard Nixon’s vice president. There is a really short list and Nelson Rockefeller is on that list. He is the heir to the Rockefeller fortune and former governor of New York. Also, if you don’t remember, the Rockefeller family is wrapped up in a lot of the conspiracy theories of the time, like the Trilateral Commission, et al. The family is central to some of these conspiracy theories about an oligarchy that exists behind the scenes of the republic. And there was quite a bit of consternation and many accusations that Rockefeller was trying to buy the presidency by greasing palms and securing the appointment to become vice president. He would then have become president in waiting, because by now everyone was fairly convinced Nixon would not survive.
And it sure seemed like Rockefeller was going to get it, at least to my nine year old eyes. I am watching the machinations in Washington DC and I’m thinking it doesn’t matter, Rockefeller, is going to be named. And then out of left field comes this guy, Jerry…Gerald Ford is appointed. He becomes the vice president and then when Richard Nixon resigns, Gerald Ford is president. Ironically, Nelson Rockefeller then gets to be the vice president as Ford appoints him there.
I am writing about this because we have a model here of what happens when a president gets into real big trouble and everyone starts thinking he’s going to have to resign or be impeached. There are clearly power struggles that go on behind the scenes as people try to position themselves to take advantage. Currently, I see some things going on that make me very nervous, especially because of the recent document releases from the Mueller investigation.
These document releases are kind of inoculating Mike Pence. Mueller is saying that Flynn lied to a whole bunch of people about what he discussed with this Russian or that one during the campaign. As part of this timeline, Mueller is giving Mike Pence a fig leaf that he didn’t know anything about the Russians being involved in the campaign. However, inside of Bob Woodward’s book, Fear, there seems to be a little bit of a discrepancy in the Flynn/Mueller timeline of lies. According to this timeline, Pence should already have known before Flynn lied to him. It seems like Mike Pence is being inoculated, so that he can step into the presidency. And I am very concerned about Mike Pence stepping into the presidency because he’s a mainstream politician and a very conservative one.
I don’t think Mike Pence is good for the country, but I do think he knows how to play the political games that keep the covers over what’s really going on behind the scenes. Fortunately for Americans, big baby number 45 is not so disciplined. This is actually a positive for someone interested in the rebirth of the republic. You see when number 45 is throwing tweet tantrums, he’s often exposing the fact that there appear to be some anomalies on how and who’s running the country.
In the 21st century, the president has often been able to do whatever he wants. America is not supposed to be just a dictatorship of the executive branch. However, it seems like the president is able to prosecute a war, send troops off, and keep them there for a long time without any formal declaration of war from Congress. This president was able to deploy troops to the southern border during the alleged migrant caravan in violation of the Posse Comitatus Act. A lot of weird stuff is exposed with this current occupant of the White House.
That is one reason why number 45 needs to stay in office. Impeachment through a damaged judicial branch that seems politically motivated is not going to put us on the right track. It’s not good for the republic. The current occupant of the Oval Office needs to be voted out of office in my opinion. I strongly feel that Pence is even worse than #45, because he’s going to do almost everything behind the scenes and not buck the oligarchy. Pence does not care. Pence will carry that water. Pence is happy to have the military everywhere across the globe.
Pence is not going to push back on the Global War on Terror. He’s not going to say we’re pulling troops out of Syria, which raises another question. Number 45's withdrawal of troops from Syria has been illustrative of the oligarchy’s desires. Withdrawing troops is probably a good idea, though doing it in a chaotic fashion and overnight is maybe not the best way to do it. After all, we do have allies there and there are other complexities to being in Syria.
However, America does not seem to have a good handle on the Mid-East. After all, the creation of ISIS through the invasion of Iraq is our baby. We created it and we’re not doing anything to make it better from what I’m seeing. We seem to be quite incompetent with our Middle Eastern policies all throughout the 21st century. The truly shocking thing was to see Mattiss resign over this withdrawal, while he had no problems deploying troops on American soil. People have been resigning because number 45 is going to pull those troops out of Syria. However, next thing you know, Bolton’s over in Israel saying it’s not going to happened.
These are insights into our government and its operation that a President Pence will not surface. Who really is running the government? I mean, if the president can just deploy troops willy-nilly without a declaration of war, one would think he’d be able to take them out just as easily, but that’s not what we’re seeing. We should have some serious questions as Americans. We should know who has the power to make war in this country and what are the criteria of getting out? What are the metrics of success for the global war on terror? We are clearly making more terrorists and more chaos from all of the metrics that that I’m seeing.
So I want number 45 to be in office over Pence. I don’t want number 45 to be impeached because it seems politically motivated. Partisanship and chaos is what we have in DC and impeachment will increase that. The partisan politician’s actions are not out of patriotism, but rather to demonize the other side. All they want is to get a winnable majority in the populace to make their policies move forward. But what are these policies? We give these politicians power, but they don’t seem to have too many coherent policies on either side, especially as it relates to foreign policy.
Look at these resignations from pulling out of Syria. Both Democrats and Republicans are having a cow about it. So many are saying how bad it makes us look and how terrible it is, but said not word one when number 45 is deploying troops on American soil. Nobody resigned as number 45 deployed troops on American soil. Nobody resigned then, even when children are being imprisoned and even dying on our southern border. Nobody resigned over all the children dying in Yemen. What is the United States gaining in Yemen other than the ability to sell weapons to the Saudis?
And what about all this national security stuff that keeps coming out? It is hinting at the fact that the executive branch seems to have a lot of power. Senators Ron Wyden and Rand Paul have hinted at secret interpretations of the law. They have actually said some things that seemed to indicate that behind the scenes there have been some rulings by government officials, whoever they are, that put a lot of power into the executive branch.
It doesn’t look like Mike Pence is going to do a Spiro Agnew. Robert Mueller along with his other military, uh, colleague, former colleague, Flynn, appear to be inoculating Pence from the impeachment. That way he can become president when number 45 resigns. I think number 45 is bound to resign, especially if there’s any chance that his children get sucked into this mess. If Ivanka is going to go to jail or maybe Donald Junior is going to go to jail, I think #45 will cut a deal and resign. No matter what we think about number 45, I think the parental instinct is still there. If his offspring really get in trouble, and they’re really going to jail, he will resign in a heartbeat.
I don’t think it serves this country to have him resign or be impeached. We must have a free election. That means paper ballots. If we’re not going to fix the computerized voting machines, then I think we should just go to paper ballots. We already saw what happened in 2018 and it was a mess. In 2020, we can’t have a mess. We have to know whether or not number 45 really has as many votes as it seems he got in 2016. The only way to know that is paper ballots. That is what matters more than anything. Free and transparent elections are a top priority, NOT impeaching this yahoo. We also must keep the Electoral College and fix the House of Representatives by no longer freezing the size of it after every census.
Free and transparent elections is what this country needs. All this other stuff is bullshit. We have to have a real frigging election. We don’t know what’s going on in this country and an impeachment followed by the installation of Pence as president is not going to help at all on any of these fronts. I have children and I want them to inherit a real country. The republic must not die. I am definitely encouraging you to pay attention, to learn about the constitution, to understand that these checks and balances appear to be broken and don’t get distracted by the impeachment theater.
